Effect of School Heads’ Inspirational Motivation Leadership Practices on Students Academic Achievement in Public High Schools in Kumasi Metropolitan, Ghana

Abstract

Inspirational motivation leadership behaviour among school heads is critical in shaping students behaviour in a school context. This has aroused scholarly interest globally. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of school heads’ inspirational motivation leadership practices on students’ academic achievement in public high schools in Kumasi metropolitan, Ghana. The study adopted the transformational leadership theory espoused by James McGregor Burns (1978) and supported by Bass (1985). The convergent parallel design, a strand of the mixed methods approach was engaged for this study. The target population was 17370, and consisted of 19 heads of schools, 2122 teachers, and 15229 students. This study on the basis of Slovin’s sample calculation formula, sampled 424 teachers and 552 students from the 19 schools selected. The study further employed Kothari’s proportional representation method to determine sample size for teachers and students for each school. The study used random sampling technique to sample students and teachers from the schools. Data were collected with questionnaire and interviews. Experts in Educational Management were requested to address the content validity of the data collection instruments for the study. Cronbach’s Alpha test showed that the instruments were reliable. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the quantitative data. In descriptive statistics, frequency, weighted average, standard deviation, and percentages were used. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis was employed to determine the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable. The study controlled for factors that could influence students’ academic achievement, these included sex of student, family structure of student, average age of teachers in a school, sex of teachers for a school, average educational attainment of teachers in a school, average teachers’ rank in a school, and average number of years teachers have spent in a school. Analysed quantitative data was presented in tables. Qualitative data were analysed thematically and presented in narratives and in verbatim forms. The study used 5% significance level. The study concluded that inspirational motivation leadership behaviours of school heads had significant positive effect on students’ academic achievement. The study recommends that school heads should adopt this transformational leadership practice to ensure improvement in students’ academic achievement.