COUNSELING AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN RANGWE SUB COUNTY OF HOMA BAY COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study sought to ascertain the impact of counseling on the academic performance of Rangwe Sub-County students. The four objectives of this study were as follows; the role of counselors in promoting academic performance in public secondary schools, students, attitudes towards counseling in public secondary schools, the challenges facing counseling in public secondary schools and the factors influencing, and students’ academic performance in public schools, social learning and person-centered theory underpin this. The study is participants were 25000 students from 21 secondary schools in the Rangwe sub-county of Homa Bay County. The researcher targeted all students as well as 21 teacher counselors. The sample used was 394 people. The participants were chosen using simple random sampling. Participants were given questionnaires to analyze quantitative data, descriptive and inferential statistics was used. The data was presented in the form of frequency graphs and verbation responses. A pilot study was carried out to validate the instrument veracity and dependability frequencies, means and percentages were used to analyze qualitative data tables with explanations were used to present the findings. The data was analyzed using (SPSS) version 21 by the researcher. The researcher hoped that the findings of this study would have an effect or influence on academic performance in Rangwe sub-county. The study established that counseling services in schools enables students to share the problems they go through for psycho-social support and this helps in promoting their performance hence leading to good performance in public secondary schools. The study performed a correction co-efficient test to quantity the strength of the linear relationship between two study variables. Counseling services had the highest positive correction with schools academic performance, attitude of students towards counseling had the highest positive correction with schools academic performance, challenges facing counseling had a positive correction with schools academic performance and other factors affecting counseling sensing had the lowest but positive correction with schools academic performance from the findings , this study recommends that in order to promote the behavior of students on seeking for counseling services, there is need for the schools to create awareness across the schools. Teachers should work towards building a good teacher-students relation. This can help students to always open up and seek for the counseling services, schools administration ought to work closely with the counseling teachers as well as students in order to identify and address all possible challenges that most cases hinder students for seeking for counseling services while in schools. Lastly, public secondary schools administrations need to be proactive in determining the other factors that tend to influence students behavior of seeking for counseling services hence address them for effective counseling services in public secondary schools.