Influence Of Principals’ Instructional Supervision Practices On Students’ Performance In Kenya Certificate Of Secondary Education In Yatta Sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of secondary school principals’ instructional supervision practices on students’ performance in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in Yatta Sub-County, Kenya. The study sought to determine the extent to which principals’ checking of teachers’ professional records, classroom observation, academic target setting and post observation conference influence students’ performance in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in Yatta Sub-County, Kenya. The study used descriptive survey design in which the target population was 50 principals and 510 teachers in public Secondary Schools in Yatta Sub-County. The study used simple random and purposive sampling methods to select the two extra county, the ten county and twenty day schools. The study sampled 25 principals (50%) and 153 teachers (30%). The data was collected by use of questionnaires (Principals’ questionnaire and teachers’ questionnaire). Supervisors of this study were consulted to validate the instrument. To establish the reliability of the instrument, the test retest method was used, and the reliability coefficient was computed using Pearson’s Product Co-relation Coefficient. Qualitative and quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS and presented using descriptive statistics; that is tables, frequencies, percentages and content analysis. Majority of the respondents indicated that the principals checking of the professional documents enhanced the students’ performance in KCSE. For instance 80 percent of the principals checked records of work once a month and according to the teachers 68.90 percent checked the records once a month. It was established that according 64 percent of the principals, students’ notebooks were checked once a month while 82.80 percent of the teachers indicated that visiting of students in classrooms was done once a month during classroom observation. The study established that according to 100 percent of the principals and 90.34 of the teachers, they set targets for their schools and agreed that target setting influenced students’ performance in KCSE. On post observation conferences, 80 percent of the principals and 70.09 percent of the teachers agreed that they participated in them. The study concluded that instructional supervision had an influence on students’ academic performance and had to be strengthened. The regression analysis on the relationship between the dependent and the independent variable demonstrated that all the independent variables had above positive 0.7 relationship with the students’ KCSE performance. The study recommended that TSC should empower the deputies and HODs to assist the principal in carrying out instructional supervision and employ more teachers to reduce teacher shortages, KEMI and the MoE to plan for capacity building for principals and teachers, the QASOs to intensify supervision in schools and advice the principals and teachers accordingly, and BOMs to motivate teachers and students.