Abstract:
Economics is a very important subject in the school curriculum. However, since
the adoption of 8-4-4 system of education in Kenya in the mid 1980's, the number of students
registering for economics in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) has been
steadily dropping. This has been attributed to the unsatisfactory student's performance in KCSE
economics. This paper sought to examine the effect of teacher characteristics and attitudes on
student performance in Economics subject. The study is a field based survey conducted in
secondary schools offering economics in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. Simple purposive
sampling was used to get the representative sample for the study. The representative sample,
constituted all the fourth form students of economics in all the secondary schools in the Rift
Valley Province of Kenya, Inspectors of schools in districts where economics was being offered
and teachers from the schools where the subject was offered. A total of 187 students, 32 teachers
and 4 district inspectors took part. Data was collected from the sample using questionnaires. The
data collected was analysed using Excel software program. Basic statistical techniques were
used to analyse various items in the questionnaire. These include calculating the averages,
frequencies, percentages and totals. These statistical techniques were used to make comparisons
in the various data collected. Conclusions on the variables analysed were finally drawn from
these comparisons. The study concludes that teachers have a positive attitude towards the
subject thus poor performance could be attributed to other factors than teacher attitudes. The
author expects that teachers of economics will benefit from the findings on the identified factors
that influence the instructional procedures and strategies and hence improve the performance of
the subject in the national examinations.
