AN ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENCES IN ACADEMIC PERFOMANCE BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS IN MIXED PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS: A CASE OF KISUMU COUNTY KENYA

Abstract

There is a gender academic performance gap between boys and girls with one gender lagging behind according to Education experts. The main objective of this study was to analyse the differences in academic performance between boys and girls in mixed public primary schools in Kisumu County. The specific objectives were; to examine the influence of planning for classroom instructions in improving academic performance between boys and girls in mixed Public Primary Schools in Kisumu County; to determine how gender of the teacher affect academic performance of boys and girls; to determine the effect of parents’ attitude towards a child’s education on academic performance of boys and girls; and to examine the effect of learner’s perception towards subjects on academic performance of boys and girls in mixed public primary schools in Kisumu County. This study was guided by Educational Productivity theory and used a descriptive survey research design. The study used pragmatism research paradigm. Head teachers, class teachers, subject teachers, pupils and their parents of the public primary schools in Kisumu county constituted the Target population of 585 schools. Stratified sampling, Simple random sampling and Purposive sampling were used. A sample size of 30 % of the target population was used. Both Primary and Secondary data were collected using Questionnaires, Key Informant Interviews and written documents respectively. Descriptive and Inferential Statistics were used in data analysis. Document analysis was also done. The results of the study showed that the correlation between classroom instruction planning score and academic performance score was not statistically significant (r=-0.178, p=0.09); The gender of the teacher did not significantly affect the academic perfomance of boys and girls (p=0.678 for male teachers and p=0.639 for female teachers); Correlation between parents’ attitude towards child’s education and academic performance was significantly positive (r=0.374 and p=0.027). Parents attitude towards child education explained 11% of the learners academic performance and that a unit increase in parental attitude towards child’s education leads to an improvement in academic performance by 63%; and there was a significant positive correlation between learner’s perception towards subjects on academic performance for boys (r=0.406 and p=0.026) and not significant for girls (r=-0.035 and p=0.863). Learners’ perception towards subjects predicts 13.5% of the learner’s (boys) academic performance meaning that 86% of the boys’ performance is predicted by other factors not accounted for by the model. This study concludes that academic performance of the learners is significantly affected by parents’ attitude towards child’s education and learner’s perception towards subjects on academic performance for boys. This study recommends that there is need to establish and strengthen the guiding and counselling department in schools to make the pupils take positive perception towards subjects and especially in boys. Also, Parents need to be encouraged to take positive attitude on their child’s education because it explained 11% of the learners academic performance. The study recommends that similar research should be carried out in other Counties to analyse differentiated academic performance between boys and girls and that there is need to investigate other factors that affect academic performance of boys because this study has shown that only 13.5% of the learners’ (boys) academic performance is explained by their perception towards subjects.