Factors associated with performance of mathematics in secondary schools in Uganda: a case study of secondary schools in Kasese district

Abstract

This study was conducted in Kasese district. The objective of the study was to investigate the factors associated with the performance of mathematics in secondary schools using Kasese District as a case study. The research methodology for the study was descriptive cross-sectional research design. The sample size was 150 students and simple random sampling technique was applied in selecting the respondents who were included in the sample. The researcher used questionnaires to collect data and data was analyzed SPSS version 20.The research findings indicated that majority of the respondents (64.2%) were males and only 35.8% were females. The study concluded that most of families in Kasese District have family members ranging from 2 to 7 which implied many household members per family. The study findings indicated that 45.9% of the respondents were aged between 14 and 17 years of age followed by 27.7% who were between 10 and 13 years of age and there was no student of less than 10 years among the respondents. The study findings indicated that majority of the respondents (52.0%) were from Government owned schools whereas only 48.0% of respondents were from privately owned schools. The findings also revealed that mathematics performance is greatly affected by school type (p-value=0.000) with private students likely to perform better than government students. The study findings found out that most schools in Kasese district are located in semi-urban areas. The study revealed that the age of the students greatly affects the mathematics performance with younger students likely to perform better than old students (p-value=0.000). The results also revealed that school location has a significant impact on mathematics performance (p-value=0.002) evidenced by most schools in towns perform better than those in villages especially in sciences. The study findings revealed that gender of respondents greatly affects the mathematics performance (p-value=0.000) evidenced by National Examinations where more boys pass science subjects than girls. However, the study findings indicated that education level of household head s and their occupational status have no significant impact of the performance of Mathematics by their children (sig.>0.05). The study concluded that gender of the student, age, school ownership and location significantly influences the Mathematics achievement of the student whereas education level and occupational status of household head s does not. The study recommended that research on other science subjects like Biology, Chemistry and Physics be conducted in Kasese district and also, be done in districts within Uganda especially those with poor performances in science subjects.