Relationship between principals’ leadership skills and secondary school students’ academic performance in Nakuru North Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

Principals’ leadership in educational institutions plays a key role in academic performance. It is observed that effective principals’ leadership in schools lead to academic performance and is characterized by skills and competences that build a collaborative school community whose effort enhances academic performance. Academic performance leads to students’ development in the capacity of knowledge, life skills and attitudes. Principals’ leadership is challenged following the variation between poor and well performing schools in KCSE the key indicator for academic performance. This study sought to find out the relationship between principals’ leadership skills (technical, human and conceptual) and secondary schools academic performance in Nakuru North Sub-County. The study used ex post facto research design. The target and accessible population included the 27 principals and 393 teachers from public secondary schools. A sample of 27 principals was purposively selected and 194 teachers were proportionately selected to form a total sample of 221 respondents. Two sets of questionnaires; Principals’ Leadership Skills (PLS) and Teachers’ Leadership Skills Perceptions (TLSP) were used as main data collection tools. Content, construct, and face validity was checked by the supervisors and other experts in research field from the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Management and pilot tested in 5 secondary schools. Reliability co-efficient of the research tools (PLS) and (TLSP) were estimated at 0.69 and 0.72 using Cronbach co-efficient alpha. Data analysis used both descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Descriptive statistics included measures such as percentages and means. Inferential statistics involved Pearson-Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and accepted at α= 0.05. The study found that principals who have and utilize conceptual, human and technical skill in management of their school have a positive influence that result to students’ academic performance. Consequently, teachers’ who perceive their principals’ having leadership skills in the three categories and utilizing them contributes to teaching instructions and academic performance. Lastly, there was a significant relationship between principals’ leadership skills and student academic performance in areas of conceptual skills, human skills and technical skills. The study recommended teachers training institution to expose trainees into in-depth leadership and management skills. The study further recommended that, the ministry of education need to steer the opening of more leadership and management oriented institution to enhance leadership skills in areas of conceptual, human and technical skills. Lastly bbenchmarking should be done between poorly and best performing schools to bridge the gap between principals’ leadership and students’ academic performance.