Influence of Syllabus Coverage on Academic Integrity and Examination Malpractices in Secondary Schools in Garissa County, Kenya.

Integrity refers to the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; doing the right thing in a reliable way and Malpractices is an Improper, unethical, or dishonest behaviour, especially in a professional or academic setting. In academics’ malpractices refer to any form of cheating, dishonesty, or misconduct during examinations or assessments. This research investigated how syllabus coverage influence to Academic Integrity and Examination Malpractices in Secondary Schools in Garissa County. The study adopted descriptive survey research design, quantitative and qualitative approaches was used to collect data. The target population focused on Principals, teachers and student leaders from various schools. There were 38 secondary schools with 38 principals and an average of 25 teachers and 200 students in every school totaling to 950 teachers and 7,600 students respectively. Respondents were sampled using stratified random sampling. There were sample of 11 schools out of 38,11 Principals were selected using census, 55 teachers and 77 students’ representatives were also selected using simple random sampling. Data from teachers and students’ representatives were collected using questionnaires while that from principals were collected using interviews. Descriptive statistics and Pearson r were used to analyze collected data quantitatively while that from interviews were analyzed verbatim. Research findings indicated that syllabus coverage in schools were moderately correlated with the level of academic integrity and examination malpractices (r=0.334, p<0.05). The study is expected to help educational institutions have the potential to shape academic integrity and examination malpractices through their policies, practices, and institutional culture on syllabus coverage.

Syllabus Coverage, Integrity, Examination, Malpractices

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