Impact of principals' leadership styles on kcse performance in public secondary schools in Tana River County (Kenya)
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Date
2014-10-02
Authors
Gwiyo, Japheth S.
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Abstract
In the country, Kenya, many teachers have been elevated to leadership positions
without formal training thus leading to mismanagement of schools, poor students'
performance and disappointing results. The kind of leadership style adopted by a
leader greatly determines the nature of performance in an institution. All around are
many examples of schools whose once glorious reputations have been brought low
through inadequacies in leadership and others greatly improved through effective
leadership. Whereas good leadership initiates and sustains a slow but steady upward
spiral, bad leadership makes academic standards plummet. Centrally the study was to
examine the impact of principals' leadership style on KCSE performance in public
secondary schools in the vast Tana River District. The samples included teachers and
principals from the nine selected public schools in the district. Random sampling was
employed to come up with the sample. Data was collected using questionnaires for
teachers and principals. The Principals filled the profile of own behavior (form OB)
and the teachers filled profile of leader behaviour (form LB). Both inferential and
descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected. Precisely frequencies,
simple percentages and measures of central tendency were used to analyze the data.
Graphs and tables were used to present data. Correlation analysis was used to show
the relationship between principals' leadership styles and student performance in
K.C.S.E. Findings largely indicated that principals' leadership styles greatly affects
students' KCSE performance. The autocratic leadership style dominant in Tana River
County secondary schools has been found to have a significant positive correlation
with the very poor grades being posted by the students at K.C.S.E. It is therefore
recommended that principals need to shift to transformative approaches of leadership
for effectiveness so as to improve the poor performance of their students at K.C.S.E.
To this end, it is recommended that a one year mandatory leadership training
programme be initiated during the holidays for the principals in Tana River County to
update them with modern leadership trends and techniques. It also recommended that
a reputation of fairness and equity should be fostered by the principals to the teachers
as this would motivate a spirit of loyalty and love in them leading to high productivity
and improved performance in particular.
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Description
Master of Education Degree Department of Educational Management,
Policy and Curriculum Studies 94p. May, 2014