| dc.description.abstract | Students’ academic achievement is very crucial at every level, individual, family,
organization and the nation as a whole. For a school to perform well, in academic
and co-curricular activities, effective leadership is needed. Cole (2002). The
government of Kenya continues to provide teaching staff to all public primary
schools in the country, to provide instructional materials through Free Primary
Education programme, physical facilities in the schools so that all pupils perform
well in national examinations. The study sought to investigate the influence of the
head teacher’s leadership styles on the academic performance of public primary
school pupils in Yatta District. The study used expost facto research design. The
researcher collected data using two sets of questionnaires with both open and
closed ended items, for head teachers and teachers. Both types of questionnaires
had three sections, where section A collected demographic data, section B
collected performance data while section C collected data on perceptions of head
teachers leadership styles. To determine reliability of instruments, test-retest
technique was used and using Pearson product moment correlation formular, a
correlation co-efficient of 0.8 for both instruments was obtained.This study was
based on the contingency theory of leadership brought up by Fredick Fielder
(1967). In this study expost facto design was employed. The target population of
this study was all the public primary schools in Yatta District, Machakos County.
There are 124 primary schools, three public primary school have not yet presented
candidates for KCPE so was not be used in this study, therefore 121 head teachers
formed part of the target population. Quantitative data analysis and descriptive
statistics was used to give percentages, frequencies and means for the different
leadership styles. The data presented helped to explain the relationships between
the variables of the study. The findings revealed that majority of the teachers
(62%) perceived their head teachers leadership styles as autocratic while majority
of the head teachers themselves (60%) perceived their leadership style as
democratic. In schools where democratic style was exhibited, academic
performance was higher than schools where autocratic styles was used, while
where laissez style was used poor results were a characteristic. The study further
concludes that head teachers are friendly and easy to approach and talk to, that
head teachers normally listen to each group of school community even when they
hold different opinion from mine, that head teachers normally encourage staff to
frankly express their view points, that head teachers always express confidence in
staff even when we disagree on some issues. The researcher therefore concludes
that head teachers leadership styles influence academic performance in primary
schools in Yatta District. The head teachers mainly used autocratic leadership
styles. The study recommends that Kenya Education Management Institute
support head teachers by providing frequent training programs and appointment to
headship by the Teacher Service Commission should be based on academic and
professional competence. The study finally gives suggestions for further study | en |
