Relationship Between School Climate And Students’ Subject Choice In Public Secondary Schools In Nairobi County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

School climate is the collective characteristic of an organization-the overall atmosphere

that one senses on entering a school. It is the quality of the character of school life based

on patterns of students, parents and school administration. It has three essential

dimensions, Physical, Social and Academic which all impacts on students’ subject

choice. Subject choice is crucial in the life of students because the choice they make

determine the career path they shall pursue in life. It is in a school that a learner acquires

norms, values and expectations that enable them make the right choice. This is the

essence of this study which sought to establish whether there is significant relationship

between school climate and students’ subject choice in public secondary schools in

Kenya. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. It was done in Nairobi

County which had 79 public secondary schools,79 principals, 316 Heads of academic

department and 10,920 Form Three students. Out of this target population, 30 public

secondary schools were sampled randomly to get 30 principals. Purposive sampling was

used to select 120 Heads of academic department and 390 Form Three students. The

instruments for data collection were questionnaires for principals, teachers and Form

Three students and observation check list. Data collected was coded and computed with

the help of SPSS version 18 to get means, frequencies, percentages and Standard

Deviations for qualitative data. Analysis was done using Pearson’s Chi square test and

One Way ANOVAs for quantitative data. The study revealed that there was significant

relationship between school climate and students’ subject choice at a p-value of .041

which was less than the level of significance of .05. In view of the study findings, it was

recommended that the Ministry of education should formulate follow up guidelines that

would encourage instructional leaders to create positive school climate that would

enhance wholesome development of students in secondary schools so that acquired skills

of decision making can enable them to make informed decisions on subject choice. The

study findings are additional knowledge in the field of Education.