Effects of headteachers' leadership styles on students' performance in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education in Marani District, Kenya

Abstract

This study was to determine the effects of public secondary school head teachers' leadership styles on students' performance in KCSE in Marani district. The objectives of the study attempted to establish whether the performance of students in KCSE examinations was influenced by the head teachers leadership style and demographic valuables such as the administrative experience of the headteachers, gender and age of school category and academic qualification of the headteachers. The study was guided by the path goal theory, highlighting the impact of head teachers' leadership styles on teachers in relation to students KCSE performance. The study gathered the pertinent data using questionnaires and examination results analysis of all the 39 public secondary schools in Marani district.

The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Data was collected from 34 headteachers and 238 teachers drawn from 34 public secondary schools in the district. Reliability was computed using person's correlation co-efficient between the scores of the even-odd numbers after which the reliability' was determined using spearman brown prophecy formula. Stratified and purposeful random sampling was used to select respondents from a population of 476 teachers. Random sampling was used in selecting respondents from each school. The questionnaires were administered through personal visits paid to schools by the researcher. The questionnaires were given and collected the same day.

Descriptive statistics was used in data analysis, interpretation and presentation. Tables showing frequencies percentages means and standard deviations were used to show the effects of leadership styles in relation to teaching experience, chronological age teacher qualification, and gender of headteachers and school category. The correlation coefficient revealed that there was a relationship between headteachers leadership styles and students KCSE performance. The findings further revealed that democratic leadership styles had high KCSE performance in their schools compared to their counterparts. It was also revealed that majority of teachers perceived their headteachers as being autocratic. The study found out that many headteachers perceived themselves as democrats while teachers perceived their head teachers as autocrats. The findings also indicated that headteachers leadership styles was not influenced by gender, age, academic qualification and teaching experience.

However school category influenced headteachers leadership style and students KCSE performance to a certain extent. On the other hand it was revealed that most teachers perceived their headteachers as exhibiting autocratic leadership style and a smaller proportion exhibiting democratic and lessees-faire style of leadership based on the findings, the researcher recommended that there is need in for facilitating headteachers leadership styles in schools as they had a direct relationship in students' KCSE performance.