Influence of Principals Leadership Styles on Students’ Discipline Inselected Public Secondary Schools in Njoro Sub-County, Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

The Kenyan vision 2030 envisages to achieve various goals including improving the quality of education, increasing the enrollment rates as well as increasing the transition and completion rates. The attainment of these goals is highly dependent on the discipline of the students which affects academic performance which is influenced by the principals’ leadership styles. The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of principals’ leadership styles on students’ discipline in selected public secondaryschools in Njoro Sub-County. The objectives of this study sought to: investigate the influence of principals’ participative leadership style on students’ discipline in selected public secondaryschools, determine the influence of principals’ task oriented leadership style on students’ discipline in selected public secondary schools, examine the influence of principals’ laissez faire leadership style on students’ discipline in selected public secondaryschools and evaluate the influence of principals’ transformational leadership style on students’ discipline in selected public secondary schools in Njoro Sub-County. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The study was carried out in NjoroSub-Countyin five administrative divisions namely Njoro Central, Lare, Kihingo, Mauche and Mau-Narok. The target population wasthe 10,855 students in all the 38selected public secondaryschools. The formula by Creswell was used to determine the study sample size of 154 students. Stratified random sampling procedure was used to sample 154 students from the study population. Data was collected using interview schedule and questionnaires. Reliability of the instruments was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient formulae and was found to be 0.819. This was an indication that the instruments attained a reliability coefficient above the required threshold and were therefore deemed as acceptable and suitable. The data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics were used to describe the principals’ extent of use of participative, task oriented, laissez faire and transformational leadership styles as well as levels of students’ discipline. Ordered logistic regression and Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis was used to determine the influence of principals’ participative, task oriented, laissez faire and transformational leadership styles on students’ discipline in Njoro Sub-County. The study results revealed that participative, laissez faire and transformational leadership styles have a significant positive influence on student’s discipline while task-oriented leadership style have a significant and negative influence on student’s discipline. The more participative, non-interfering and transformational the principals’ leadership style is, the better the students’ discipline. The study recommends that principals should embrace the use of participative, laissez faire and transformational leadership styles in their bid to instill more discipline on the part of their students. Principals should however endevour to reduce the use of task-oriented leadership style since the leadership style has a significant negative influence on student’s discipline.