An investigation on the causes of student’s poor performance of bookkeeping subject in form four national examinations: a case of Ubungo Municipal Council

Author

Mshindo Idd

Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

First Supervisor/Advisor

Dr. Fortidas Bakuza

Second Supervisor/Advisor

Veronica Sarungi

Department

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Abstract

The form four national examination results in bookkeeping subject for years have been going down. Many students are performing poorly in their national examinations. However, students' performance in bookkeeping subjects is very good when students are in form two. This research investigates the causes of student’s poor performance of bookkeeping subject in form four national examinations. The research was a case study design and used purposive sampling in getting research participants. Data for this research were collected through a semi-structured interview and document analysis. The research involved 17 participants who are; Students, Subject teachers, Academic teachers, and Head of schools. Findings showed that there are several causes of student’s poor performance in bookkeeping subjects in their national form four examinations. These causes are an unconducive learning environment, insufficient teaching and learning materials, low teacher's morale in teaching, and lack of student’s interest in studying the subject. An unconducive learning environment is due to the lack of teacher's support to students, low student’s efforts on learning the subject, and lack of teacher-student interaction during the learning environment. The research findings revealed that low teacher's morale in teaching is caused by a lack of motivational factors like rewards and effort recognition by the school administration and historic performance of the student in their previous examinations, especially in form two national examinations. Furthermore, the research findings showed that is due to insufficient teaching and learning materials like lack of textbooks for bookkeeping subject, lack of teaching aids, and mismatch between the syllabus and available bookkeeping textbooks. The Head of schools is supposed to improve the learning environment by motivating their teachers and employing temporary teachers for bookkeeping subjects to reduce teacher's teaching load. Besides, teachers have to inspire their students to study bookkeeping by inviting different people who succeed through the business carreer.

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