Student Data Management and School Decision Making in Kenya

Abstract

Student data management in schools seems to be ignored by educational planners in developing countries and needs to be addressed if effective planning is to be attained and the goal of quality education realized. Studies have revealed that educators fear data, and have poor record keeping cultures in institutions of learning which may account greatly to the inability of school principals to plan and administer schools without embarrassment from time to time. There is evidence from existing literature that better use of data is essential for improving student success. It is for this reason that this study attempted to investigate the influence of student data management on planning in secondary schools. The objective of the study was to identify the types of student data required for planning in schools. The study used descriptive survey design and was done in Kisii Central Sub-county, Kenya. The study focused on all the principals, teachers, and clerks in the 77 registered secondary schools in the area whose population was 706. Stratified random sampling, simple random sampling, and purposive sampling were used to obtain a representative sample of 243 respondents. The sample size for each target population was as follows: 37 Principals, 37 Guidance and Counseling teachers, 136 Class teachers, 37 Clerks and 3 Education officials. Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. Reliability of the instruments was tested using test-retest method while expert judgments were used to determine their validity. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Data were presented using frequency tables, and percentages. The findings from the study revealed that schools principals and teachers were not fully conversant with their student data requirement for effective planning. The study concluded that student data management in schools was ineffective, and this affected planning. The study recommended that school principals and teachers should build strong data cultures and ensure comprehensive student data is collected, analyzed and used continuously throughout the school year to guide decision making. Student data management should be done using appropriate techniques by trained data teams, and problems affecting data management solved.