Abstract:
This study sought to investigate Principals’ influence in
use of peer counseling as an alternative disciplinary method on
students’ discipline in public secondary schools principals’ in
kitui county, Kenya. The study objective sought to establish the
extent to which public secondary school principals had
implemented peer counseling as an alternative disciplinary
method in their schools. The study adopted the ex-post-facto
research design to establish the situation of students’ discipline at
the ground. The target population consisted of 333 secondary
school principals from which a sample of 101 respondents was
obtained. Data was collected by use of Questionnaires. A pilot
study was used to establish instrument validity. Instrument
reliability was determined by a test-re-test technique. Descriptive
statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyse data. Data
was presented using frequency distribution and cross tabulation
tables. Qualitative data was organised and presented in narrative
form. A Chi-square (x2
) test was used to establish the
significance of implementation of peer counselling and students’
discipline. The significance level was set at alpha = 0.05. From
the findings, 67.3 per cent of the principals agreed that students
attended peer counselling in their schools while others did not.
Results of chi-square (x2
) test had a p-value 0.349>0.05. The
study concluded that school discipline could be shaped by the
disciplinary methods that school principals adopted.