ABSTRACT

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) integration in teaching and learning has been a trending phenomenon in the contemporary classroom. Use of ICT in teaching has been found to create learning activities which lead to an improvement in the overall student achievement. For effective integration of technology in teaching, a teacher has to be ICT competent. Some of the ICT competencies include level of ICT training, operating ICT devices, creating information using ICT devices and accessing information on the internet. This study aimed at investigating the influence of teacher competency in the use of ICT on student academic achievement in physics in secondary schools in Makueni County. Stratified random sampling was applied to select a sample of 60 schools. The research used descriptive survey design where participants answered questions administered through interviews and questionnaires. Microsoft (MS) Excel (2010) was used to analyze the data. The objectives were analyzed through descriptive statistics and conceptual content analysis whereas analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypotheses. From the study, it was observed that students taught by teachers with a high level of ICT training performed better than students taught by teachers with low level of ICT training. Similarly, teachers who were confident in operating ICT devices led to students achieving high scores than students taught by teachers who were not confident in operating ICT devices. It was also observed that teachers who were confident in creating information using ICT devices led to students achieving high scores than students taught by teachers who were not confident in creating information using ICT devices. Likewise, teachers who were confident in accessing physics content on the internet led to students performing better than students taught by teachers who were not confident in accessing physics content on the internet. Generally, the study found out that ICT competent teachers led to students achieving high scores in physics. In view of these findings, the researcher recommended that the government to connect all secondary schools with electrical power and provide ICT facilities to the schools, the ministry of education to set up ICT institutions or ICT training centers to train physics teachers and increase the frequency of in- service trainings (INSETs) so as to enable teachers acquire sufficient ICT competencies to integrate the same in teaching, the government to install Wi-Fi network connection to all secondary schools to enable teachers access physics content effectively on the internet and lastly, more research to be done on the frequency of ICT use in teaching and its influence on student academic achievement in physics.