Effects of Teaching Work Load on Teacher Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Kitui County, Kenya

Abstract

School climate and teacher performance are critical factors in any learning institution that seeks to have competitive edge. Teachers from Kitui County have raised concern over unfavourable school climate that affects their performance. Despite the fact that some studies on school climate have been carried out in Kenya none of them has explored exhaustively on poor teacher performance. Hence there was need to carry out this study. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of effects of teaching work load on teacher performance in public secondary schools in Kitui county. This study employed mixed methods approach and descriptive survey research design to reveal and measure the opinion of teachers and the indicators of school climate and was anchored on three motivational theories namely: McGregor theory x and Maslow's Hierarchy of needs and Hertzberg's two factor theory. The study targeted 400 public secondary schools and 2417 teachers from Kitui county. Purposive and random sampling was used to select 40 principals and 488 teachers. Fractional method was used to sample 40 teachers from the 400-public secondary schools.20% of 2417 teachers were randomly selected from each sub- county. Sample size for this study was calculated using hypergeometric formulae where 76 principals and 352 teachers were selected giving a total of 428 respondents. Data was collected using Questionnaires for teachers, interview schedules for principals and document analysis. Validity of the instrument was achieved by reading other research works, books and journals. Split half reliability was used to test teacher's questionnaire and principal's checklist. Research instruments were appraised through a pilot study on 25 teachers and 5 principals from Katulani sub-county. Data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively using Pearson correlation moment to test the questionnaire, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression. Descriptive statistics and inferential statics were used. Descriptive statistics aided by statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21.0 was used.  Quantitative data was presented in percentages, t-test, frequencies and tables while qualitative data was organized into thematic categories according to the objectives of the study. The study established that there is statistical significant relationship between teaching workload and teacher performance p-value=0.001<0.05 level of significant.The study concluded that teachers felt they had a high teaching workload hence lacking ample time for lesson preparation and this made them feel they had prepared their students for assessment. The study recommended the need for school principals to balance teacher's workload for them to become productive by getting enough time for lesson preparation.