THE EFFECT OF MEDIA USE ON THE QUALITY OF LEARNING OUTCOMES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MBOONI EAST SUB-COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

The study sought to accentuate instructional media use and the quality of learning outcomes in English language in public secondary schools. Its purpose was to determine the effect of instructional media use on the quality of learning outcomes in English language in public secondary schools in Mbooni East Sub-County, Makueni County. The study employed a mixed approach with a descriptive survey design. Data was collected from Extra County, County and Sub-county public secondary schools using questionnaires, interview schedules and tests for the students where a 97.33% response rate was achieved. The dependent variable was learning outcomes in English language among students in public secondary schools in Mbooni East Sub-county, Kenya while the independent variable was instructional media use. The target population was teachers of English, heads of languages department and form their students in the Sub-county. Simple random sampling was used to select the students while purposive sampling was used to select the teachers of English and the Heads of Department languages. A sample of 12 teachers, 12 heads of the languages department and 313 students were involved. The instruments’ validity was determined through expert opinion from the school of Education of Machakos University. The reliability of the instruments was ascertained during piloting a sample that was not part of the study. Two approaches were used in analyzing the data, that is, descriptive and thematic approaches for quantitative and qualitative respectively. Quantitative data was analyzed through descriptive statistics and presented in frequencies, means and percentages with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data which was thematically presented in prose. The study reveals that the quality of learning outcomes in English language in the sub-county is slightly below average, sub-county schools perform poorer and female students outshine their male counterparts. It was concluded that instructional media use enhances learning outcomes in English language. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education should equip public schools with instructional resources. In addition, the Quality Assurance and Standards officers and school principals should emphasize to teachers to use instructional media in teaching English language. Parents and other stakeholders in schools through the Board of Management should also come up with strategies on how to provide instructional media for use by teachers to enhance learners’ quality of learning outcomes.  Article visualizations: