PRINCIPAL'S LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR AS A DETERMINANT OF EFFECTIVENESS OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA.

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between principal's leadership behaviour and effectiveness of secondary schools in Nigeria. The descriptive research design of the survey type was adopted. The population consisted of all the teachers and principals in the public secondary schools in South West Nigeria. The sample was however made up of 1200 teachers and 60 principals from 60 secondary schools across 3 states in the region. Multistage, simple and proportionate stratified random sampling techniques were used to select the states, schools and the teachers used for the study. Two sets of instruments were used to collect the data for the study. The data were analysed using frequency counts, percentage scores and Pearson product moment correlation. The hypothesis formulated was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that the behaviour of principals in the area covered was satisfactorily encouraging. The study also showed that the schools were effective in the affective and the psychomotor domains but not all that effective in the cognitive domain. The study further showed significant relationship between principals' leadership behaviour and secondary school effectiveness. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the principals of schools should not relent in sustaining the tempo of their leadership behaviour. It was also recommended that all the stakeholders in the secondary school education as well as the government should try to uphold the level of performance of students in the affective and the psychomotor domains while efforts should be geared towards improving upon the students' performance in the cognitive domain.