Abstract:
The secondary school students’ background factors are important in the students’ life and may
determine the academic outcomes and the levels of self esteem. Self esteem is an important concept
in child development and fluctuates as the secondary school student develops an overall view of
themselves within the environment they are growing up in. This study sought to establish the
relationship between the students’ socio-economic status and their self esteem and academic
achievement in public secondary schools in Kericho County. This was an Ex Post Facto research
that employed a Correlation research design, to determine whether there is a relationship between
the students’ socio economic status and their self esteem and academic achievement. The
population was 9048 form four students enrolled in public secondary schools in the Kericho County
from which a representative sample of 384 students and 17 class teachers was obtained. The
schools that formed the study units were purposively selected to include only County schools and a
stratified sampling technique was used to select the study units to ensure all strata (Single sex and
mixed schools) in the population were represented. A questionnaire and an interview schedule were
used to collect information on the students’ background factors. A self-esteem inventory was used to
collect data on self esteem of the students. The research instruments were piloted and tested to
establish the reliability using the Cronbach’s alpha and a reliability coefficient of 0.74 was
obtained. Descriptive and inferential statistics (t-test and regression analysis) were used to analyze
the data collected. The significant level was set at α =0.05. There was no statically significant
relationship between students’ family SES and their self- esteem. The study also establishes that
although there was a slight difference in levels of self esteem between boys and girls the
relationship was not statistically significant. There was no statistically significant relationship
between student’s family SES and their self esteem. The results imply that teachers need to pay
more attention to the girls to ensure they maintained healthy levels of self esteem which would lead
to improved psychological stability and better academic outcomes.
