Influence of principals’ leadership behaviour on students’ performance at kenya certificate of secondary education in public schools in Masaba south district
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of principals’
leadership behaviour on student academic performance at the Kenya
Certificate of Secondary Education among public secondary schools in
Masaba South District in Kisii County, Kenya. The objectives of the study
were; to establish principals’ leadership behaviour as perceived by teachers in
public secondary schools in Masaba South District, to determine the extent to
which principals’ leadership behaviour of consideration influences
performance of students at KCSE in Masaba South District and to establish the
extent to which principals’ leadership behaviour of initiating structure
influences students’ performance at KCSE in Masaba South District. The
research design used was expost facto design. The target population was 39
principals and 500 teachers in public secondary schools in Masaba South
District. Simple random sampling and purposive sampling was used to get the
36 schools, 36 principals’ and 216 teachers. Two categories of questionnaires;
one for the principals and another for the teachers were used. Descriptive
statistics were used to analyze data to give the percentages (%), frequencies
and means. The study revealed that principals perceived themselves to be high
in consideration and moderately high in initiating structure but teachers rated
them moderately high in consideration and moderately high in initiating
structure. It is also apparent that many variables play a role for the leadership
behaviour of the principals to be perceived as favourable by the teachers. The
findings of the study were that majority of the teachers 63.4% agreed that
principals’ behaviour affect the students’ performance a KCSE. Majority of
the teachers 63.4% rated leadership behaviour for the principals’ as good.
Principals rated themselves high in consideration and moderate in initiating
structure while teachers rated principals moderately high in both consideration
dimension and initiating structure dimension. The researcher concluded that
in consideration dimension; supportive behaviour should be high since it is
personal oriented in nature while in initiating structure, directive behaviour
should be a major characteristic since it is task oriented in nature. From the
findings of the study, the principals’ leadership behaviour was rated as good
by the teachers, although the performance was below average as rated by the
principals. The study recommended that since principals’ behaviour was rated
as good and students performance in KCSE was below average, there was
need to examine other sided factors by the principals. The study suggests that
principals’ leadership is critical in management of public secondary schools.
High quality of leadership behaviour mainly in consideration dimension and
initiating structure dimension influence the performance of the students.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Collections
- Faculty of Education (FEd) [5962]