Influence of gender on -self-concept and academic performance among secondary school students in Kangema Constituency, Murang’a County, Kenya

Abstract

Globally, boys and girls use gender as an organising theme to classify and understand their perceptions about the world. While some male students perform relatively well as compared to females in KCSE, others in the same schools, taught by the same teachers and sharing same resources, are outperformed by females in examinations. Females are outperforming males at all levels of the school system, where girls’ enrolment in secondary schools tends to go upwards, while that of boys reduces rapidly. This study sought to examine the influence of gender (male and female) on self-concept and academic performance among secondary school students in Kangema Constituency, Murang’a County. The study employed a causal comparative expost facto targeting all the 6,168 students and 24 teacher counselors in the 24 secondary schools in Kangema Constituency. Twelve secondary schools were selected to take part in the study. From each of the sampled schools, 20 students were selected using stratified random sampling. In mixed schools, 10 boys and 10 girls were selected to ensure gender balance, giving a sample size of 240 students, (120 boys and 120 girls). 12 teacher counselors were also selected to participate. A questionnaire for students and an interview schedule for teacher counselors were used as the main tools for data collection. A pilot study was conducted in two schools to test the reliability and validity of the data collection tools. A cronbach alpha of 0.6670 was obtained using Spearman’s correlation coefficient and the instruments were considered as reliable. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics, (frequencies, means and percentages) and inferential statistics, (t-test and Pearson’s correlation), at 0.05 level of significance. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences 12.5 was used to analyse data. The study established that there were statistically significant gender differences on students’ self concept and academic performances and that female students had a more positive self concept than male students. With regard to academic performance, male students were performing well in academics compared to the female students. The study recommends that guidance and counseling services should be provided to the female students based on self-concept to improve academic performance; frequent counseling sessions, among male students based on self-concept to improve in verbal, honesty, trustworthiness and same sex relations; while administrators and teacher counselors should guide and counsel students on their self concept.