3rd International Research Conference Proceedings Chuka University, 2016

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Influence of Religious Education Teaching On Character Development Among Students in Secondary Schools: A Case Study of Kirinyaga County,
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Mune, C.W
The scenario in which irrational behavior has dominated the character of the Kenyan youth has brought to contention whether the moral well-being of the youth is on a downward trend suggesting that either the teaching of moral values through C.R.E is defective or the Kenyan education system as a whole is defective. The moral character of the Kenyan secondary school student in the wider society has become an issue of concern in the recent past. Previous research reported that Kenyan students’ moral standing and general conduct in the wider society reflects lack of acquisition of skills necessary to deal with challenges in the current society. Little attention has been given to the correlation between the teaching-learning of CRE and acquisition of requisite skills. It’s against this background that the researcher investigated the influence of religious education on character development among students. The study was guided by Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning which has strong implication to moral education. Descriptive survey design was used to conduct the research using ten schools, ten CRE teachers and 380 CRE students in the sampled schools. Information was collected by use of questionnaires and interview. Data was analyzed using frequency distribution tables, percentages, and bar graphs. Findings revealed that teachers rarely used the elements of skill acquisition in delivery of the content that could enable the learner make accurate moral decisions. Also, the curriculum and the syllabus guides do not elaborate on the elements of moral values teachers ought to use during C.R.E content delivery. For CRE teaching to be to be productive to an individual, the syllabus must be organized into a logical whole. This calls for systemat
Cannibalization of Vacational and Technical Education Through Career Counselling at Secondary School Level
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Muriu, S and Gichuhi, D
ABSTRACT Vocational and Technical Education forms a very key foundation in enabling a nation to achieve MDG and SD. Kenya as a country highly depends on technical skills to achieve The Vision 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals. This can only happen through proper and realistic career counseling information provided by the counseling teachers at secondary school level. According to KCSE results released every year, majority of the candidates score between grade C and D which are the requirement for entrance at Diploma and Craft level. However, there has been a missing link between the nature of careers counseling services offered at secondary school level due to expectations that majority will join trainings at university levels thus ignoring students who are not higher performers. The objective behind this study was to investigate the challenges faced by students in acquiring technical and vocational education by establishing the level of career information with the student; the subject choice at secondary school, establishing the nature of counseling offered and investigating the challenges encountered in acquiring admissions in vocational and technical training institutes. Various career theories and models that guide career choices formed foundation for the study. The study assumed a descriptive design where qualitative and quantitative data was collected through questionnaires and interview. The target population included form four leavers who scored grades D and C. Findings revealed that most respondents had no career information on vocational and technical education in Kenya.
Critical Analysis On How Teacher-Related Factors Affect Application of Progressivisms’ Learner-Centered Approaches in Teaching and Learning of Mathematics: A Case of Meru South Sub-County, Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya.
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Mwangi, S.N
Learning mathematics` problem-solving skills using learner-centered teaching approach, as emphasized in the philosophy of progressivism, enhances creativity and problem solving skills to the learners. In contrast, learning mathematics using teacher-centered approaches have increasingly dire consequences to the pupils such as poor performance, lack of creativity, poor socialization and lack of problem-solving skills. This study critically analyzed how teacher-related factors affect application of learner-centered approaches in teaching and learning of Mathematics. The study employed descriptive survey research design. The target population comprised of 5,547 subjects consisting of 5,160 pupils and 387 teachers from 129 public primary schools within Meru South Sub-County, Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya. A sample size of 378 respondents was obtained using simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques. Questionnaires were used to collect data from pupils and mathematics teachers. The results of the data analysis were presented using bar graphs, frequency tables and charts. The research findings revealed several learner-related factors such as motivation, attitude, beliefs and myths on mathematics, which were noted to make pupils participate passively in the learning process. Pupils’ negative attitude towards mathematics was also noted as a major hindrance to the application of Progressivists’ learner centered approaches in teaching and learning of mathematics in Meru South Sub-County. The researcher anticipates that the findings and recommendations of this study may provide valuable reference for teachers, curriculum developers and policy makers in education on learner-centered approaches to enhance teaching of Mathematics.
Perceptions of Catholic Church On Tetanus Vaccine to Women in Kenya.
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Rufo, B.M
Government of Kenya has been focusing on a mass tetanus vaccination campaign for past years. This targeted woman between 14 and 49 years with an aim of protecting babies from neonatal tetanus, a case of pregnant mothers. Before the March and October 2014 mass tetanus vaccination campaign, the Catholic Church raised concerns about the safety of the vaccine that was being used. Therefore, this study was about the perceptions of Catholic Church on tetanus vaccine to women in Kenya. The objectives of the study were to analyze the reasons as to why Catholic Church in Kenya reject tetanus vaccine, determine the impacts associated with tetanus vaccination to women and society at large, determine bodies and institutions that support and contribute to the vaccination program and finally to access the Kenyan government response concerning the views brought by the Catholic Church on tetanus vaccination to women. Most of data was collected from secondary source. The findings showed the main reason for Catholic Church rejecting the vaccination is because it was a population control scheme by the government, the vaccine was also viewed as important since it prevents neonatal tetanus in newborns, the main bodies and institutions that supported the programme included the WHO, UNICEF and Ministry of health. Finally, the government responded to this issue by forming a joint committee of experts to jointly test the vaccines. More public awareness was needed and should be done in case there is a such programme in future; key stakeholders from religious groups, private and public sectors need to be incorporated in decision making process and the government could have used a different provider for vaccines until the investigation got resolved.
Educational Implication of ‘Sheng’ In The Learning of Kiswahili Among Secondary Schools Students in Kenya: A Case Study of Kirinyaga County.
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Mune, C.W
In the recent past Kiswahili has been hit by a wave of ‘Sheng’ speakers who are mostly adolescents and young adults. Use of Sheng has raised significant linguistic and pedagogical questions associated with the attainment of Kiswahili proficiency. While some people have advocated the growth of ‘Sheng’ as an indication of societal growth in Kenya, others, including scholars, researchers and educationists are on the opinion that the spread of this code impacts negatively on the learners in Kenyan schools and should be left to hip hop musicians, public transport touts, drug peddlers and school drop outs. In the education circles, the code is gangster slang, a secret code associated with social misfits, is fluid and not easy to understand. It interferes with standard Kiswahili and has negative effects on formal education. In Kenya, language policy has come to mean political pronouncements, government statements, and recommendations by Educational Commissions which are rarely implemented. The study was guided by Inter-language theory by Selinker. Study sample consisted of 9 schools, 368 form three students and 40 teachers. Sample populations were obtained through purposive and stratified sampling. Research showed that the code has interfered with formal language learning inside the classroom since students fail to mark the boundaries between ‘Sheng’ and standard Kiswahili and thus continue to show incompetence in writing and speaking. Also, it has interfered with the performance of students in national examinations especially in sentence constructions. Students regarded sheng as a tool to distinguish themselves from their parents whom they perceive as living in the past. Findings show that ‘Sheng’ has to do with lack of clarity in Kenya’s language policy. The paper recommends specific researches on the language situation in Kenya especially as far as the spread of ‘Sheng’ and its impacts on education are concerned
Drama and Orality in Kenya’s Radio Advertising.
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Njogu, J.G.
The relationship between drama, cultural practice and electronic media in Kenya is built around a history of intricate relationships informed by history, aesthetics and values adored by the African people since time immemorial. By function, drama has always addressed cultural, historical and emerging themes. For quite some time now, it has become a very fashionable technique of advertisement production in Kenya, yet research on drama as a persuasive genre remains scant. This paper examines the relationship between advertisement drama in radio and indigenous literary practices of the African people. It is based on the assumption that since the purpose of advertisements is to influence mass buyers, the choice of drama genre by advertisers imply that it possesses unique persuasive elements that can render for scholarly analyses. Since radio is a purely oral-acoustic medium just like primary orality, elements of primary oral cultures serve to enhance the expressiveness of radio-mediated advertisements. The paper begins from awareness that drama has always been a cultural production in Kenya, and that indigenous literary forms have always punctuated dramatic experience at every phase of its development both in content and style. Using a qualitative design, data is in the form of audio recordings of advertisements that use the technique of drama in radio. These are transcribed, translated and analyzed to arrive at conclusions about the persuasive strategy of theatre in the radio medium. Walter Ong’s theorizing about transiting from primary orality to typographical forms will enable us understand the psychodynamics of how audio messages are crafted to resonate with those who hear them. Ong’s ideas about the notion of ‘imagined audiences’ will also be used. These ideas enable us examine how advertisers imagine their audiences via virtual experience. It is expected that aspects of indigenous literary forms will manifest, and that these elements have rhetorically latent. It is also expected that the language in theatrical ads will be uniquely fashioned to persuade, and that these adverts will reveal how their consumers understand the world around them.
This Is Me: The Kenyan Political Autobiography as A Quest for Salvaging the Self.
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Mutie, S., Rutere, A.M. and Goro, N.K.
The seemingly failure of the first independent African leaders to put an end to poverty, illiteracy and disease, and thus to open the gates to all-round development in their countries has elicited a flurry of scholarly debate. This paper is a continuation of this debate. It aims to account – in yet another way, for the stubborn reality of largely unfulfilled aspirations of the anti-colonial struggle in Africa, and Kenya in particular; to explain from a possible new perspective Kenya’s deficient post-independence. Particularly it examines Oginga Odinga’s Not Yet Uhuru (1966), Bildad Kaggia’s Bildad Kaggia: Roots of Freedom 1921-1963 (1975), Raila Odinga’s, The Flame of Freedom (2013) and joseph Murumbi’s Path Not Taken (2015) to show how, in this literature, they employ specific literary strategies to absolve themselves of all the postcolonial blame, in the process portraying themselves as defenders of nationhood, democracy, and as forces against negative ethnicity. The paper argues that, in this self-refashioning, these leaders advance the very same escapism employed by the founding fathers. Focusing their attention on concealing their ambition-deformed personalities behind the masks of the positive self-identities they construct, the opportunity for genuine leadership and genuine service to nation-building is largely lost.
Conceptual Metaphors in Ken Walibora’s Novel: “Kidagaa Kimemwozea
(Chuka University, 2016-10-20) Ntabo, V.O. and angangi, B.
The deficiency of grammar in unearthing literary gist necessitates the borrowing of a Cognitive Linguist’s lenses for a fuller explication of a text. This motivates the blast-off point in pursuit of meaning where “backstage cognition” fills a lacuna whose origin is the apparent mismatch between the writer’s background and the reader’s linguistic resources. Whereas intellectual endeavors unclothing the correlation between language and cognition cannot be controverted, the diligence paid to the study of metaphor in literary texts within a cognitive-semantics perspective has hitherto been hemmed in. We, therefore, analyze the conceptual metaphors in Kidagaa Kimemwozea by the Kenyan novelist Ken Walibora. The novel reflects a bedeviled state whose unfeeling king abuses power to amass wealth as sounds of anguish rent the air. Luckily, the protagonist (Amani) conspires with the king’s son to exploit the father’s weakness for the benefit of common citizens. This chapter establishes, classifies and annotates the conceptual metaphors using survey descriptive research design within the backup of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. It utilizes the Great Chain of Being metaphor whose chief objective slots a place for any phenomenon in a set hierarchical system. Animals, plants, objects and natural things are stratified source domains richly used to depict the characters in the novel. For a better appreciation of conceptual metaphors, it is salient to use the spectacles of a cognitive linguist to understand contextual language against the cultural, historical and geographical backdrop. Conceptual metaphors are conduits of communication and should be explained using a cognitive linguistics approach. Language is embodied and situated in a specific environment, making it possible for the meaning of some of the metaphors to elude the reader.

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