Effects of Learners' Attitude, Gender and School Type on English Language Performance: A Case Study of Thika West District
Abstract
Educationis the key to unlocking human potential. The acquisition of communication skills and
languageenables people to share their ideas and knowledge effectively. Studies done in Kenya
have observed that very few secondary school leavers are effectively able to speak, read and
write in English language. The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitude the learners
havetoward English language, the effect of attitude, gender and school type on English language
performance. The motivation for the study was the continued poor performance in K.CS.E
English language paper. Two theories were used in the study, the tricomponent theory by
Breckler (1964) and Smith, (19470) and interlanguage theory by Selinker (1972) . The study
targetedstudents from public day secondary schools in Thika West District. Forty students from
four public day schools were randomly selected. A Five point Likert Scale questionnaire was
used to find out the kind of attitude students have towards English language. An English
language test was constructed and used to determine the students' performance in English
language.The data was sorted and organized by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS) and R Statistical Software was used to analyze data. Specifically, the study focused on
differences in leamer's performance in English language in relation to the following variables:
Attitudetowards English language: Positive and negative attitudes, gender of the learner: Boys
and Girls. School type: Mixed and single schools. This was followed by a comprehensive
presentation of the analyzed data where description, tables, pie charts and bar graphs were used.
Theperformance was statistically significant predictor at 95% confidence level of one's attitude
towardsEnglish language. This was so because its p-value=O.OOl which is less than the critical
value(0.05%) of the study. Therefore the study concludes that the English language performance
can better be explained by the attitude the Iearner- has towards English language. Learners with
positive attitude towards English language had significantly better performance than learners
with negative attitude. However, gender and school type were non-significant factors in
determining the performance level in English language.