Factors influencing teachers’ involvement in co-curricular activities in public secondary schools in Matungulu sub-county, Machakos county, Kenya.

Abstract

Education should ensure the development of an all-around person. Co-curricular activities are a very important and essential part of education. It prepares learners to be holistic. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors influencing teachers’ involvement in co-curricular activities in public secondary school in Matungulu sub-county, Machakos County, Kenya. The study focused on the following objectives: to investigate the influence of motivation, workload, level of training of teachers and the support of school administration in co-curricular activities on teachers’ involvement in the co-curricular activities in public secondary schools in Matungulu sub-county. This study was based on Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory of 1964 which emphasizes the importance of forward-looking beliefs about what will occur. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The target population was 34 principals and 380 teachers from the public secondary schools in the sub-county. Data was collected using questionnaires and observation checklists. The supervisors who are experts helped the researcher in establishing the validity of the instruments and determining the relevance of the content used. Content validity was ensured by conducting a pilot study. Reliability of the instrument was achieved by test-retesting the instrument. The Pearson product moment correlation was employed to compute the correlation coefficient in order to establish the degree to which the contents in the questionnaires were consistent in giving the same results every time the instrument was administered. In this study, the acceptance level was 0.7. Quantitative data was coded and analyzed with the help of SPSS.The data was presented in the form of charts and tables. Qualitative data were presented as per the study objectives. The study revealed that the motivation of teachers involved in co-curricular activities was very essential, it also revealed that teachers were heavily burdened by their workload which hindered their involvement in co-curricular activities, majority of the teachers were not trained in co-curricular activities and this made them not to be involved in the activities and the school administrators supported their schools in co-curricular activities. The study recommended the need for principals to institute mechanisms of motivating teachers, teachers be trained in co-curricular activities and schools’ administrators should support the schools through the provision of co-curricular facilities. The suggestions for further study are that the study can be replicated in public primary schools in Matungulu sub-county, Machakos County.