The purpose of this research was to examine the student-based factors influencing their academic performance in history subject in mixed secondary schools in Kibwezi sub-County, Makueni County. The study examined whether absenteeism, classroom concentration, reading skills and drug abuse affects students’ academic performance. The research adopted questionnaires to collect data and analyzed them quantitatively. The quantitative data was analyzed and tabulated through a descriptive statistic such as percentages, frequency distribution tables and pie charts. The study involved three mixed secondary schools consisting of 110 respondents in Kibwezi sub-county. The schools were randomly selected for data collection. The study established that there is a great relationship between classroom concentration and the academic performances in history since students who have a low classroom concentration perform poorly. The study revealed that there was a strong relationship between absenteeism and the performances in history. This is because students had experienced decline in their history performances due to frequent absenteeism which could have been caused by lack of basic needs such as food and clothing a well as school fees. The study revealed that reading skills had some positive effects in the academic performances of history subject. The study established that there is a relationship between drug abuse and the academic performances in history. This is indicated by the fact that the study revealed that some students use drugs during school time and as a result they miss history classes and they have a low performance in history subject and they also find difficulties when completing their assignments. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education, parents, schools and the community in general have a major role to play in ensuring that students are not negatively affected by the student-based factors in their academic performances by ensuring that all students adhere to school rules and regulations and also doing check-ups from time to time. The government should ensure enough and regular sanitization to schools and make sure teachers do their work efficiently. Parents should work hand in hand with teachers to ensure students do not miss classes due to cases which can be controlled.