Headteachers’ instructional supervisory styles and teachers’ job performance in public basic schools in Otuam education circuit, Ekumfi district

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the kinds of instructional supervisory styles practiced by headteachers in public basic schools in the Otuam Education Circuit, the level of teacher job performance as well as the relationship between instructional supervisory types and teacher job performance. The descriptive survey research design was used to collect quantitative data with the aid of structured questionnaires. Data were collected from 155 participants made up of 24 headteachers and 131 teachers using the census and stratified random sampling techniques respectively. With the aid of the Statistical Package for Service Solution version 26, descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test, One-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation) were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that headteachers rated highest on the directive informational supervisory style (M=3.684, SD=1.629), followed by non-directive supervisory style (M=3.203, SD=1.616), collaborative supervisory style (M=3.116, SD=1.707), and directive control supervisory style (M=2.829, SD=1.268). Collectively, all the supervisory styles yielded a mean of 3.208 (SD=1.001) respectively. The study also discovered that the teachers’ level of job performance in relation to management skills was very good (M=3.904, SD=1.558), while their level in terms of teaching skills (M=3.054, SD=1.394), discipline and regularity (M=3.042, SD=1.003), and interpersonal relations (M=2.936, SD=1.264) as well as the overall job performance (M=3.98, SD=0.778) was good. Again, the findings showed that, there was a moderate and statistically significant positive relationship between instructional supervisory style and job performance (r=0.480, p<0.05, two-tailed). Based on these findings, the study recommended that the Ghana Education Service through the Ekumfi Education Directorate should organize in-service training for the headteachers to enable them balance the use of instructional supervisory styles in the schools so as to improve the job performance of the teachers.