Students’ Self Concept and Academic Achievement in Relation to Music Education and Music Performance: A Case of Nairobi Secondary Schools, Kenya

Abstract

This Study aimed at investigating the relationships between Music Education, Music Performance and secondary school students‘ Self Concept and Academic Achievement. Researchers believe that music helps in enhanced brain activity which increases student‘s ability to perform certain academic tasks. There are, however, inconsistencies on how music influences Self Concept and Academic Achievement. The researcher aimed at seeking to establish the relationship between each of the independent variables (music Education and music performance), and the dependent variables (Students‘ Self Concept and Academic Achievement) and also to establish inherent gender differences. An ex- post facto survey design was used for the study. Form three students in the sixty Public Provincial Boarding secondary schools in Nairobi County were used out of which eighty participants were selected through purposive sampling to get the schools that offered music as an examinable subject, stratified sampling to get the two different categories (boys‘ and girls‘ schools) and simple random sampling to get the required sample. A questionnaire was developed and used to collect data. Students‘ Academic Achievement was determined by use of examination records, which were converted (standardized) from raw scores to z then to T scores (T= z (sd) + Mean; T= 10z + 50) for comparability since the students had done different exams, marked by different teachers, using different grading systems. On the other hand, Self Concept was measured by the Modified Semantic Differential Scale (SDS). Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for data analysis and both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. All the hypotheses were tested at α = 0.05. Chi-squire was used to test associations, Spearman correlation coefficient to check intercorrelations, while t-test for independent samples was used to test the difference between means. The findings revealed that the relationship between students‘ Self Concept and music education was statistically significant; there was a significant difference in Academic Achievement scores between those who studied music as an examinable subject and those who did not; there was no significant difference in Academic Achievement scores between those who participated in music and those who did not; there existed a very strong and significant relationship between each of the specific domains of self-concept and total Self Concept. The findings concurred with the three theories that guided the study, as they demonstrated that music education had a strong and significant relationship with general Academic Achievement and students‘ Self Concept. Thus, the researcher recommends that, music be made an examinable subject at all levels of education and also be made a core subject especially in primary schools. Further research could be done on the relationship between music education and other aspects like discipline and also Academic Achievement of specific subjects. Replications of the Study could also be done in different settings using larger populations.