| dc.description.abstract | This research was set to investigate the influence of principals' leadership styles on students' discipline in public secondary schools in Tetu district. Despite the centrality of education and the noble intentions governments have in promoting education, there are several challenges that hinder the attainment of this desired commitment. In addition to social, political and economic factors that may affect the provision of facilities and resources, there are institutional challenges which may lead to disruption of school programmes. The most common and rampant of these institutional challenges is students' discipline (Bosire & Kiumi, 2010). This study has adopted Blandford (1998) definition of discipline as the readiness to obey established rules, norms, standards or certain conditions that exist in schools to regulate students' conduct. The level of students' discipline in schools depends on whether the principal as the chief executive officer of the school enlists the support of teachers and parents in discipline management (Bosire &Kiumi, 2010).
The objectives of the study were: to establish the discipline issues in the schools, to establish if autocratic leadership style had an influence on students' discipline, to determine if democratic leadership style had an influence on students' discipline, to determine if laissez faire, transactional and transformational leadership styles had an influence on students discipline.
The study reviewed literature on discipline issues in schools, autocratic leadership style and students' discipline, democratic leadership style and students' discipline, transactional leadership style and students' discipline, transformational leadership style and students' discipline and laissez faire leadership style and students' discipline.
The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The target populations were 1297 Form 3 students, 391 teachers and 23 school principals drawn from public secondary schools in the district. A sample of 13 schools was selected using simple stratified sampling technique. A sample of 67 teachers from the sampled schools was selected using simple random technique. A sample of 130 students from the sampled schools was selected using the simple random technique. Data were collected using questionnaires from teachers and students while data from the principals were collected using the interview method.
The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented in percentages and frequency distribution tables using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) computer programme version 17.0.The key findings of the study were that there were discipline issues in schools, most of the secondary school principals in the district applied autocratic leadership style at the expense of democratic, transformational and transactional leadership styles. The conclusion drawn was therefore that the application of autocratic leadership style was responsible for the discipline cases in the schools.
The recommendations of the study were that, public secondary .school principals in the district should avoid over reliance of the autocratic leadership style, the Ministry of Education (MoE) should develop a policy that would demand attendance of compulsory school administration course for teachers before promotion to the position of a school principal. The study suggested that a similar study be carried out in other districts for comparison purpose, a similar study be carried out in private secondary schools for comparison purpose and replication of the same study in the same district 5 years from now to find out what changes have taken place on the leadership styles used by the school principals'. | en_US |
