Evaluating the Effectiveness of Clinical Intervention Strategies for Addressing School Refusal Behavior Among Primary School Pupils in Keiyo North SubCounty, Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya

Abstract

Several cases in Kenya have been reported on school refusal behavior among primary school pupils and in Elgeyo Marakwet Country the cases are higher. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of clinical intervention strategies for addressing school refusal behavior among primary school pupils in Keiyo North Sub-County, Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya. The study was guided by Psychoanalytic Theory by Sigmound Freud. Positivism philosophy and descriptive research design guided data collection. The study target population was 5806 pupils which comprised of grade 7 and 8 pupils in public primary schools in Keiyo North SubCounty. A sample size of 357 pupils was arrived at using Gill et al. (2010) sample size table. The data was collected using structured questionnaires which was first subjected to pilot study to determine its validity and reliability. Ethical consideration was applied during data collection. Collected data was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 23. Results indicated that majority of learners (83.8%) stated that their teachers never recommended hospital visits when they complained of being sick at school. Further, 81.6% of the pupils reported being taken to the hospital for somatic symptoms, though the symptoms were often mild. Also, majority, 97.8%, stated that they did not use medication to address their anxiety related to school refusal, indicating that clinical interventions for such behavior are rarely employed. Results further indicated that there was a significant relationship between effectiveness of clinical intervention strategies and school refusal behavior among pupils in public primary schools in Keiyo North sub-county (χ²=33.096, N=38, p<0.05). The study concluded that the clinical intervention strategies have not been effectively used by teachers and particularly in primary schools who mostly resort to one strategy of punishment to correct school refusal. The study recommends that Teachers, Service Commission should post trained school counsellors to primary schools and not secondary schools alone and also ensure that school counseling programmes are functional.