Leadership styles of basic headteachers and its’ effects on students’ performance A case study at Ahafo Ano South West District

Abstract

The general low academic performance in Junior High Schools have been attributed to teachers’ inability to perform their functions well and head teachers’ lack of good leadership among others (Osei, 2006; Akyeampong, 2010; Oduro, Dachi & Fertig, 2008).The study sought to find out how leadership styles of Head Teachers in Junior high schools in the Ahafo Ano South West influence teacher performance. A quantitative research approach involving Systematic random sampling, semi structured interviews and questionnaire were adopted for the study, with a sample size of 113 Head Teachers/Teachers deduced from GES district data for participating schools, and was determined by Krejcie and Morgan’s sample size calculation table. The data was analysed with SPSS version 21.6. The study explored that, teachers, school environmental, parents and the pupils were primarily responsible for the low academic achievement in schools. The instrument used was five point Likert scale questionnaire, ranging from very strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). A total of 113 teaching staff responses were tabulated and put into frequencies, percentages, rank ordering and analysed. Pearson correlation analysis was employed to examine relationships between staff performance and the various leadership styles. The study established that, teachers believe that for a head teacher to perform his function very well he/she needs to have further training in educational administration among others. The study established that, the dominant leadership style exhibited by head teachers as seen by teachers is the delegating style followed closely by the democratic style. The study also found a significant and positive relationship between teacher performance and both the delegating and autocratic leadership styles of head teachers. The study recommends that, authorities should ensure that those being appointed as head teachers have training in educational administration among others. Leadership training should be conducted for head teachers so as to learn how to combine all the various leadership styles for maximum performance.