Abstract:
The education and training of persons with special needs is an important and growing initiative in most nations of the world. In Kenya, students with physical disabilities, who have the most to gain from academic achievement, do least well in school. The current study endeavoured to investigate the relationship between self-concept and academic performance of physically handicapped students in special secondary schools. The study was based on Herbert Mead‟s Symbolic Interactions Theory and the Theory of the Self, by Carl Rogers. The study adopted both the correlation and causal comparative research designs. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 135 students from the two special secondary schools for the physically handicapped and the headteachers. The data was collected by administering questionnaires to students interviewing head teachers and analyzing document. The data was then analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance. The results revealed that most physically handicapped students had negative self-concept. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient showed a significant positive correlation (r = .71, p < .05) between self-concept and academic performance. Students‟ socio-economic status and self-concept had a positive significant correlation (r = .78, p < .05). The relationship between the students‟ perception of their teachers‟ attitude towards them and their self-concept had no significant correlation (r = .183, p > .05). The physically handicapped male and female student did not differ in their view of self t (133) = .73, p >.05. The relationship between gender and academic performance had no statistical difference among the mean scores t (133) = .67 p > .05. The study recommends that special schools should concentrate on creating a supportive environment fostering the development of self-concept because the results of this study indicated that majority of physically disabled students had low self-concept.
