| dc.description.abstract | The concept of attitude permeates virtually all facets of a person's daily life and educational supervision is not an exception. As seen in many studies, teachers' attitude towards supervision as a tool towards enhancement of educational effectiveness has been ranked low for a long time. The negative attitude by teachers has been said to be the major cause of poor performances and supervision inefficiencies. This study was meant to establish the attitudes teachers have towards external supervision in Evurori Division in Mbeere District in order to identify areas that require attention.
The study sought to fulfill five objectives, namely:
i) Determine if there exist differences III attitude towards external supervision between primary school teachers and their, professional responsibility.
ii) Find out if attitude is related to age, sex, professional experience and
qualification.
iii) Find out if there exists significant relationship between frequent supervision and teachers' attitude.
iv) Find out the factors of supervision that influence attitude of teachers. v) Identify ways of improving external supervision in primary schools.
To realize these objectives, the study had six hypotheses with a dependent variable as attitude and independent variables being age, marital status,
professional qualification and experience, professional responsibility and frequency of supervision. The study may be of help to External supervisors, policy makers, teachers, universities, teachers training colleges and Kenya Educational Staff Institute.
Literature review was carried out under the themes, concept of supervision, the structure of education supervision, administrative functions, general functions, instructional supervision, attitude of teachers towards supervision and the problems facing supervision. The concept of supervision brought in various definitions by various writers and related the concept to education. The structure of educational supervision gave an overview of the hierarchical arrangements of educational officers in charge of external supervision of educational activities. Administrative functions of an educational supervisor were identified as those involved in planning, organizing, motivating, controlling and communication.
The general functions of an educational supervisor were outlines as numerous
activities that supervisors partake in their effort to improve educational standards while instructional functions were identified as the task of actual classroom visitation by an external supervisor for the purpose of advising or recommending
a teacher on the actual teaching and learning. Attitude of teachers towards supervision was looked at in the three major domains, that is the cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Problems associated with supervision gives the difficulties that face supervisors in their effort to improve education standards.
Lastly the chapter looked at conceptual framework, which showed how supervision affects attitude of teachers.
The research was designed to be an ex post factor. The study consisted of 441 teachers and 50 schools as target population. Random sampling was used to select 228 teachers from the population for data collection and 12 teachers from 6 schools were used for the purpose of pilot study. One research instrument was used namely a questionnaire which had three parts. The response from the twelve teachers was scrutinized and verbal discussion was held to determine the validity. A research expert was also consulted. To test reliability split half method was used to calculate coefficient using odd and even numbers. Pearson Product Correlation Coefficient was used to correlate odd and even numbered scores. The full reliability of the instrument was calculated using Spearman Brown Prophecy Formula. The reliability was obtained as 0.73.
The data collected was analyzed using the One-Way Analysis Variance CANOVA) and t-test. Frequency tables, pie chart and bar graphs were used for analysis. The ANOVA was used to test for significant relationships between primary school teachers towards external supervision and their age, marital status, professional experience and qualification. The t-test was used to test for significant relationships between teachers' attitudes towards external supervision
and their gender and professional responsibilities. The hypotheses were tested at
0.05 level of significance.
The study established that gender and professional responsibilities had no significant effect on the teachers' attitude towards external supervision. However the personal attributes of age, marital status, professional experience, and professional qualification had significant influence on the teachers' attitudes towards external supervision. From the analysis, training, in service courses, promotion, relationship of teachers and supervisors, transfers and classroom observation were among factors of supervision identified in the study as mostly influencing attitude. It was found that the supervisory Department of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology should do enough in-servicing of teachers. At the same time they should organize seminars and workshops, to acquaint teachers on matters pertaining to new information on the curriculum and
utilization of local resources.
It was also concluded that the teachers in Evurori Division had great value to external supervision as a way of improving educational standards but wanted the supervisors to be more professional in carrying out supervision. It was established that the teachers were adequately informed about the role of external supervisors and that is why they were not in favour of inclusion of the TAC tutors in the routine inspection. They agreed that if the external supervisors could
perform their duties professionally, the rifts that exist between teachers and external supervisors could be reduced. Finally it was established that the success of supervision could only be achieved if the teachers and external supervisors' negative attitude towards the exercise could be improved. This can be done by changing the style of supervision to advisory and motivating where supervisors respect the teachers. On the same note, the terms of service for the external supervisors should be improved to attract more qualified and young personnel.
The recommendations arrived at were:
i) External supervisors should constantly organize service courses, seminars, workshop and demonstrations for the teachers so that they were really equipped with curriculum matter.
ii) External supervision as a course should be introduced in all teacher training colleges and universities so that they can learn what IS required in the exercise long before they join teaching profession.
iii) Intensify in service training of external supervisors.
iv) The Ministry of Education Science and Technology should recruit more external supervisors especially at the Zonal levels as in the case of Evurori Division there are no Zonal Quality Assurance and Standards officer.
v) Headteachers should be forwarding returns of supervision directly to the Ministry of Education to avoid irregular visits of external supervisors in the schools | en |
