Relationship between head teacher’s leadership styles and teachers’ commitment in public secondary schools in Makueni Sub- County, Makueni County

Abstract

Teacher commitment has been identified as one of the most important factors for the success of schools. Teacher commitment is closely connected to their work performance, their ability to innovate and integrate new ideas in their practice, absenteeism, staff turnover, as well as having an important influence on students’ achievement and attitudes toward school. Ignoring the connection between teacher commitment and leadership style of head teacher can be considered dangerous. This is because school leadership is considered to be highly significant in influencing teachers’ levels of commitment to their work. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between head teacher’s leadership style and teacher commitment in Makueni Sub County. The target population was all teachers in Kenya. The accessible population was teachers from Makueni Sub County. The study used co relational research design method. A sample of 96 teachers was selected from 364 teachers in 34 public secondary schools from Makueni Sub County. A stratified sampling was first adopted for the study. This was followed by proportionate stratified random sampling from each sub-population. The supervisors and other experts in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Management, Egerton University determined validity of the instruments. Reliability was determined using Cronbach’s alpha, which was determined at a reliability coefficient at 0.7536, after piloting of the instruments in 10 schools in Makueni district. A questionnaire and a guided interview were used to collect the required data for the study. Data analysis was done using both descriptive (frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistics (Pearson product moment correlation coefficient). Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used to facilitate data analysis. The results were accepted at 0.05 critical level of statistical significance. The key findings of the study indicated that there no significant relationship between head teachers leadership style and punctuality to school duties, meting of set deadlines, keeping records of work and working overtime by teachers . From findings the study recommends that Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and Ministry Of Education (M.O.E) should increase the number of in service courses in management for teachers and head teachers especially the newly promoted ones. The results of the study provided a basis for making decision on content seminar courses for management of head teachers and teachers so as to improve teacher commitment.