Principals’ Supervisory Techniques as Correlates of Teachers’ Job Performance in Secondary Schools in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Abstract

The persistent and prolonged pitiable state of teachers’ job performance leading to poor academic achievement of secondary school students in Ebonyi State has become a source of concern and worry among stakeholders and parents. This could be that instructional supervision is not regularly performed by the principals in order to provide professional guidance and assistance to teachers to enable them improve on their instructional delivery. It therefore becomes necessary to investigate the relationship between principals supervisory techniques and teachers job performance in secondary schools in Ebonyi State. The study was guided by three research questions and three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a correlation research design. The study population comprised 4,368 secondary school teachers in Ebonyi State. Stratified proportionate sampling technique was used to sample 1005 respondents from the population of the study. The researchers developed two sets of instruments titled ‘‘Principals’ Supervisory Techniques Questionnaire (PSTQ)’’ and ‘‘Teachers Job Performance Questionnaire (TJPQ)’’ were used for data collection. The instrument was subjected to face and content validation by three experts who are lecturers; two in Department of Foundations and the other in Measurement and Evaluation Unit in the Department of Science Education, all from Faulty of Education, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. Cronbach alpha was employed for the reliability test and this yielded a coefficient of 0.78, 0.68 and 0.81 for the three parts of PSTQ and 0.78 for TJPQ respectively. Pearson product moment coefficient was used in answering the research questions and t-test was used in testing the hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed among others that there is a high positive correlation between classroom observation techniques and teachers’ job performance in secondary schools in Ebonyi State. It also revealed that there was a significant relationship between principals’ demonstration techniques and teachers’ job performance in secondary schools in Ebonyi State. Based on the findings, conclusion was drawn and it was recommended among others that government should provide opportunity for principals to attend conferences, workshops, seminars and colloquiums on supervisory techniques at least once a year both nationally and internationally for more acquisition of skills and knowledge for effective instructional supervision in order to keep them at par with their foreign counterparts.