An Assessment of the Attitudes of Students towards History and Government in Selected Secondary Schools in Bomet County in Kenya

Abstract

History and Government is a subject that is an integral part of the Kenyan secondary school curriculum. Over the years, many students have been developing little or no interest in the subject because it is perceived as being marginal as compared to sciences. Several studies in Kenya have discovered that performance in secondary schools is hugely determined by students’ capacity and motivation to learn. Thus, this study thus set out to establish the cause of this decline in interest of students towards History and Government in secondary schools. The study sought to determine the attitudes of form two and three students towards History and Government in Selected Secondary Schools in Bomet County. The target population comprised of all public secondary schools, all the fifty two principals, all the History and Government teachers teaching History and Government in form two and form three and all the students taking History and Government in the study area. From the target population, the researcher used stratified random sampling to select 18 secondary schools, 18 school principals, 24 History and Government teachers and 410 forms 2 and 4 students taking History and Government. The researcher used both closed questionnaire to obtain information from History and Government teachers and students. Semi-structured interview schedule was used to elicit information from school principals. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the collected data using SPSS software. Out of the four hundred and ten students who responded to the questionnaire 71% of them expressed that they enjoy learning History and Government. 87.3% of the students considered the subject useful for their future careers. Only 12.7% responded that they do not enjoy learning History and Government the main reason being that it is not enjoyable since it lacked room for creativity and challenging content and its lessons are hence boring. 88.9% of principals agreed that students in their schools like History and Government. The reason given by the principals was that history leads one to pursue arts related courses. , 66.7% of the principals responded that it should continue being an optional subject in secondary schools. The research concluded that majority of the students had positive attitude towards History and Government. The research recommended that principals and teachers should endeavor to cultivate positive attitude in students for all the subjects since most teachers encourage the students to take sciences more seriously than humanities. More research should be carried out to determine the major reason why the failure and low interest of students in the subject in the study area is still persistent.