Counseling and Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Rangwe Sub County of Homa Bay County, Kenya (original) (raw)

The study sought to ascertain the impact of counseling on the academic performance of Rangwe Sub-County students. The four objectives of this study were as follows: the role of counselors in promoting academic performance in public secondary schools, students' attitudes toward counseling in public secondary schools, the challenges facing counseling in public secondary schools, and the factors influencing students' academic performance in public secondary schools. Social learning and person-centered theory underpin this. The study's participants were 25,000 students from 21 secondary schools in the Rangwe Sub-County of Homa Bay County. The researcher intends to target all students as well as 21 teacher counselors. The sample size used was 394 people. The participants were chosen using simple random sampling. Participants were given questionnaires. To analyze quantitative data, descriptive and inferential statistics are used. The data was presented in the form of frequency graphs and verbatim responses. A pilot study was carried out to validate the instruments' veracity and dependability. Frequency means and percentages were used to analyze qualitative data. Tables with explanations were used to present the findings. The data was analyzed using (SPSS) version 21 by the researcher. The study established that counseling services in school enable students to share the problems they go through for psycho-social support and this helps in promoting their performance hence leading to good performance in public secondary schools. The study performed a correlation coefficient test to quantify the strength of the linear relationship between two study variables. Counseling services had the highest positive correlation with schools’ academic performance (r= 0.512), the attitude of students towards counseling had the highest positive correlation with schools’ academic performance (r= 0.361), challenges facing counseling had a positive correlation with schools’ academic performance (r= 0.387), and other factors affecting counseling sessions had the lowest but positive correlation with schools’ academic performance (r=0.341). The study findings revealed that counseling services, the attitude of students towards counseling, challenges facing counseling, and other factors affecting counseling sessions correlate with school performance up to 45.9% (R=0.459) and account for a variation of 21.1% (R2=0.211). From the findings, this study recommends that to promote the behavior of students in seeking counseling services, there is a need for the schools to create awareness across the schools. Teachers should work towards building a good teacher-student relationship. This can help students to always open up and seek counseling services, School administration ought to work closely with the counseling teachers as well as students to identify and address all possible challenges that most cases hinder students from seeking counseling services while in school.