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.