Factors Influencing Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools: A Survey of Trans Nzoia East Sub County Kenya

The purpose of study carried out an analysis of strategies influencing academic performance in public secondary schools in Trans Nzoia East Sub County Trans Nzoia County Kenya. The main objectives were: establish the effect of motivational strategies on academic performance of public secondary schools; to establish the influence of principals’ strategy on work environment on students’ performance and examine the instructional leadership practices on academic performance in public secondary schools in Trans Nzoia East Sub County. The study was theorized by effective schools’ model theory by Lezotte (2001). The target population of the study were all principals and head of departments in the public secondary schools in the sub county. The study population comprised of all public schools in the sub county, all principals, and heads of departments. The sample was chosen using census technique as all targeted units were respondents. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the field. Simple descriptive statistics were used as they had an advantage over more complex statistics since they could easily be understood especially when making results known by a variety of readers. The coded data was processed and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that all schools employed strategies that were aimed at enhancing academic improvement. It was also concluded that there were not difference on strategies used in well performing schools and poor performing schools. The study further concluded that improvement on academic performance did not depend on the use of improvement strategy since schools that performed well and those that performed poorly claimed to employ the same strategies in the same way. In the light of the research findings the researcher to made the following recommendations: schools must seek to establish factors that lead to poor academic performance and hence find ways of addressing such factors; the government should be involved in the running of schools by providing the necessary resources and materials that would enhance improvement of academic performance; schools that deteriorate every year should evaluate all aspects of learning to establish the root cause of the same hence find ways of solving the problem.