PRINCIPALS’ LEADERSHIP STYLES AND STUDENTS’ DISCIPLINE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of principals’ leadership styles on
students’ discipline in public secondary schools in Rivers State.
Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. Four research
questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The study used a selfdeveloped questionnaire titled ‘Principals Leadership Style on Students
Discipline (PLSD)’ as the instrument for data collection. The total
population of the study was 41,790 made up of teachers, principals and
SSII students. A stratified random sampling technique with the help of
Taro Yamen was employed to select the sample size of 492 students,
153 teachers and 18 principals. Test-retest method was adopted to test
the reliability of the instrument and Pearson Product Moment
Correlation was used to analyze the data and a reliability coefficient of
0.84 and 0.81were obtained for the students and school authorities
instruments respectively. Simple linear regression was used to answer
the research questions. The result revealed an R2
of 0.57, 0.45, 0.53, and
0.79 for autocratic, democratic, transactional and translational
leadership styles respectively. This showed that principal’s autocratic
leadership style to a very moderate extent influences student discipline
in public secondary schools in Rivers State. It also revealed that
principal’s democratic leadership style has low influence on students
discipline in public secondary schools in Rivers State. Furthermore, the
result also revealed that principal transactional leadership style to a
very moderate extent influences students discipline in public secondary
schools in Rivers State while Principals transformational leadership style
to a very high extent influences students discipline in public secondary
schools in Rivers State. Therefore, it was recommended among others
that training and development programmes should be given to principals and vice principals to update them with current global
leadership style that achieve results.