Browsing by Author "Njoka, Johannes N."

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    Evaluation of Creative Thinking Skills amongst Students in Kenya: A Case Study of Public Secondary Schools in Nyeri and Nairobi Counties
    (African Journal of Education, Science and Technology,, 2018-06) Githui, Perminus; Njoka, Johannes N.; Mwenje, Margaret
    Creative thinking skills are vital competencies in the life of every individual. Therefore, people with creative thinking skills are able to innovate and come up with novel solutions to problems that confront them in life. In this way, they become innovators and problem solvers. Creative thinking is competences that enable learners to apply their imagination in generating ideas, hypotheses, and experiment with alternatives to generate new products and processes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the creative thinking skills among students in boys’, girls’ and co-education public secondary schools (PSC) in Nyeri and Nairobi Counties. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design guided by the social cognitive theory as its theoretical framework. The target population consisted of 69,220 learners in 300 PSC in Nairobi and Nyeri Counties. The schools i n t h e t w o c o u n t i e s were stratified into boys, girls and mixed-sex schools. Therefore, 4 boys’, 5 girls’ and 21 co-education secondary schools were selected to form a sample of ten percent of the schools from each stratum. Data was collected using a questionnaire administered to the sampled students. A total of 391 respondents were sampled in both counties. Analyzed data indicated that the students in Nairobi County had moderately higher creative thinking skills than their fellow students from Nyeri. The computed mean score for students’ creative thinking skills per county were; Nairobi ( 3.06) and Nyeri with ( 3.03). Independent Sample t-test of creative thinking skills of learners in both gave a pvalue 0.584 which was above 0.05 significance level, this indicated that there was no significant difference in creative thinking among students in Nairobi and Nyeri Counties. Additionally, the study sought to find out the creative thinking skills among learners in single sex and co-education public secondary schools in the two counties. Data analysis revealed that girls schools posted the highest level of creative thinking abilities ( = 3.08), followed by boys schools ( =3.07) while mixed-sex secondary schools had a mean score of 3.01. The computed ANOVA for boys, girls and mixed- sex secondary schools, yielded a p values of 0.478 which was above 0.05 significance level, indicating that there was no significant difference in creative thinking skills among students in single sex and coeducation secondary schools at 95% limit. Therefore the null hypothesis was accepted and concluded that the creative thinking abilities among students in the three categories of schools were relatively the same. The study concluded that there is need to strengthen creative thinking skills among learners in the three school categories in both counties in Kenya.
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    Status of Implementation of Life Skills Education in Public Secondary Schools in Kenya: A Case of Nyeri and Nairobi Counties
    (Kenya Journal Of Educational Planning, Economics & Management, 2015) Githui, Perminus; Njoka, Johannes N.; Mwenje, Margaret
    Educational systems are being reviewed to include life skills education (LSE) in their curriculum so as to enable learners take charge of their own lives and navigate successfully through the challenges of everyday living. However, the teaching methodologies in LSE are essentially participatory in nature and differ from the methods traditionally employed in normal classroom instruction. Students ought to be exposed to a variety of learning experiences for objectives of teaching LSE to be realized. In addition, like in any other subject, availability of instructional resources is essential to support the implementation of LSE. The purpose of this study is to assess the status of implementation of life skills education in public secondary schools in Nyeri and Nairobi Counties in Kenya. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The target population consisted of 300 principals and 300 heads of LSE subject in 86 and 214 public secondary schools in Nyeri and Nairobi Counties respectively. Stratified random sampling and purposive sampling techniques was used to select 30 (10%) schools from the two counties. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 30 principals and 30 LSE teachers from the sampled schools. Data collection instruments were an interview schedule for the teachers and the principals’ and an observation guide. A pilot study was conducted in two schools that were not part of the final study. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was computed whereby a coefficient of 0.851 was obtained the threshold of acceptance was 0.7≤ 𝛼. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 and the finding presented in for of narration, tables and figures. The findings of the study revealed that LSE was programmed in majority of schools time tables, and taught the lesson as scheduled, however, majority of schools failed to offer LSE in all classes. The schools had a shortage teachers, time constraints and pressure from stakeholders thus allocated more time to examinable subjects. Other challenges to implementation of LSE were; poor allocation of resources, lack of support from the school administration, student apathy and negative student attitudes. The study established that teachers did not employ appropriate approaches of instruction in LSE, rather the teachers adopted methods used in traditional classroom delivery to teach LSE. The rating of on selection of instructional materials by LSE teachers both counties was rated as poor. From the findings of the study, it was recommended that there was need to implementation of life skills education through observance of the Ministry of education guidelines the LSE policy with a view to oblige school administrations to realize the teaching of LSE as stipulated.