Students' attitudes towards studying Lumasaaba in Secondary Schools in Mbale District

Abstract

This study analyzed the attitudes of the students as the key stakeholders towards studying Lumasaaba in secondary schools. It was carried out in Mbale District, Eastern Uganda. Other stakeholders in this study included head teachers and classroom teachers. The study adopted the qualitative approach of the descriptive design. It had the following objectives: to assess the students’ attitudes towards studying the language; to find out the factors affecting students’ attitudes and to establish the effect of students’ attitudes had on the study of the language. The study was guided by the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) by Ajzen and Fishben (1967) which is based on the interplay and the relationship between attitudes and behavior within human actions. Three major forms of data collection were used; interviews for head teachers, questionnaires for teachers and students and focus group discussions for students. The findings from the respondents have been presented and discussed in chapters four and five. In general, the study established that all head teachers and all teachers held a positive attitude towards the study of Lumasaaba. For students, while Lumasaaba students had positive attitudes towards the study of the subject, non -Lumasaaba students held negative attitudes. The findings indicated that students studying Lumasaaba performed better in national examinations than the non-Lumasaaba students.Though attitudes do not automatically lead to better performance, for this study, Lumasaaba students performed tremendously well in Lumasaaba as a subject in particular and other subjects in general, an indication that positive attitudes towards local languages facilitate good performance. It is therefore recommended that Lumasaaba in particular and local languages in general continue to be taught in Uganda secondary schools. This is because to many students, it is a yardstick for further achievement.