Influence of parental engagement on satisfaction with public boarding secondary schools among students in Maara Sub-County, Tharaka-Nithi County in Kenya.

Abstract

A boarding school is a learning institution where students study and live away from homes and families. A boarding school includes new ways of life including routines of social and academic activities. It is therefore important to ensure that students are well prepared and satisfied as they study and live in a boarding school. The purpose of this study was to establish the influence of parental engagement on students’ satisfaction with public boarding secondary schools in Maara Sub-County, Tharaka-Nithi County, in Kenya. This study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The target population was a composition of 4,804 students, 38 principals, 38 boarding heads of department (HODs) and 38 form three class teachers from 38 boarding secondary schools in Maara Sub-County, Tharaka-Nithi County in Kenya. The sample size was a total of 439 respondents comprising of 357 form three students, 38 form three class teachers, 38 boarding HODs and six principals from public boarding secondary schools in Maara SubCounty. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 38 public boarding secondary schools from a list of 55 public secondary schools in Maara Sub-County. Simple random sampling was used to select 357 students who participated in the study. Data was gathered using interviews for principals and questionnaires for form three class teachers, boarding HODs and form three students. The instruments were piloted to determine their reliability in a school in Meru-South Sub-County, while validity of the instruments was ascertained by experts in the department of Education of Chuka University. The reliability coefficient for questionnaire was 0.8956. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 28.0 was used for data analysis. The obtained quantitative raw data was analyzed using descriptive statistics (percentages, frequency and mean). The findings of the study indicated that parental engagement has significant influence of on satisfaction with public boarding secondary schools among students. The research findings may be useful to parents and teachers as they guide students in public boarding secondary schools. The finding may also be helpful to students as they study and cope with life in public boarding secondary schools. The study findings are also likely to form a basis for reference that informs future research on students’ satisfaction with boarding