Browsing by Author "Sirengo, John Luka"

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School factors as correlates of secondary students’ achievement in mathematics in Bungoma County, Kenya
(International Journal of Educational Investigations, 2015-10-01) Sirengo, John Luka
There is abundant research evidence to support the view that when Mathematics is taught in an enabling environment, a lot of enjoyable learning takes place. But in reality this is not always so, the implication is that students' achievement in this subject still continue to dwindle. This study therefore aimed at finding the extent to which school factors predict secondary school students' achievement in Mathematics. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design of the ex-post facto type and made use of a sample of 206 Mathematics teachers and 206 principals selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure. Instruments were developed and validated for the study. The two validated instruments used were School-based Inventory (r = 0.89) and School-Based Factor Questionnaire (r = 0.92). Three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data collected were analyzed using means, standard deviation and multiple regressions. Out of the nine variables, the two variables that contributed significantly to student’s achievement in Mathematics are conveniences and instructional materials (ß = 0.130, t = 2.381, P < 0.05), (ß = 0.134, t = 2.470; P < 0.05) respectively. Findings from the study showed that instructional materials and conveniences (toilets) have been adjudged to have contributed significantly to students’ achievement in Mathematics. Therefore, ministry of education and other stakeholders should ensure that schools are provided with effective and adequate toilet facilities. It is also recommended that instructional resources should be provided in schools as the conditions accrued to school factors improve, the performance of students in Mathematics improves. Recommendations were made based on these findings.
Towards a cost effective method for estimating disease infection rates in plants
(All Scientific Journals : International Journal of Advanced Scientific Research, 2017-07-01) Sirengo, John Luka
Pool-testing involves investigating more than one unit with a single test for cost effectiveness. Rather than testing an individual plant for the presence of a disease, plants are put into groups of more than one unit and subjected to a single test to determine the presence of a disease. Therefore, if the disease is absent a single test will be sufficient; otherwise, each individual plant is tested. The study used this procedure to estimate the infection rate of a disease. The method of maximum likelihood estimator for equal and unequal group sizes is discussed. For comparison with one-at-time testing procedure, properties of the constructed estimators have also been discussed. Empirical evidence via simulation of the optimal group sizes and asymptotic relative efficiency have been achieved by use of a statistical package. From the simulated results, it emerged that the proposed procedure has smaller asymptotic variance than one-at-a-time testing procedure. Therefore, the proposed procedure is more efficient than the usual one-at-a-time testing.