Classroom management: the state of positive reinforcement in secondary education in Kenya

The study, which was based on Survey design, investigated the perception of students and teachers towards the use of positive reinforcement as a classroom management technique. It was carried out in Eldoret Municipality and it involved twenty public secondary schools having classes up to form four levels. Out of the twenty active public schools, there were two girls’ boarding, one boys’ boarding, and seventeen mixed-day schools. Six of twenty public secondary schools in the Municipality were selected through stratified, systematic and purposive sampling. The strata for the sample considered the proportions of boarding versus day schools, single sex versus mixed schools, boys’ versus girls’, large versus small schools. Five teachers from each sampled school were randomly selected. Data was analyzed using t-test because of its specific instrumentality in establishing the statistical significance of mean difference between only two variables. The findings would be useful to teachers, teacher trainers, educators and policy makers in making proper usage of positive reinforcements as classroom management techniques in schools.