Assessing Principals’ Coordinating and Controlling Strategies for Effective Teaching and Quality Learning Outcome in Secondary Schools in Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the efficacy of principals’ coordinating and controlling strategies on teachers’ instructional performance; determined students’ learning outcome; and investigated the challenges in instructional management in secondary schools. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for data collection and analysis. A total of 480 participants comprised of 30 principals and 450 teachers completed the questionnaire titled ‘’ Coordination and Control Strategies Questionnaire (CCSQ)’’ in 30 public secondary schools using multi-stage sampling technique. Four research questions and four hypotheses were formulated. The simple percentage was used to answer the research questions while Pearson correlation statistics was employed to test the hypotheses at p<0.05 level of significance. The result showed that the relationship between principals’ strategies and teachers’ instructional performance was low in coordinating (r=0.284, p<0.05), controlling (r=0.149, p<0.05), and teachers’ instructional performance and students’ learning outcome (0. 076, p<0.05). The major constraints identified included inadequate number of qualified teachers (50%); excess workload for teachers (63.3%); inadequate learning resources (63.3%); lack of adequate and well equipped offices for teachers (80%); lack of conducive classrooms (36.7%); and fairly conducive classrooms (40%). The study concluded that the Government in collaboration with the school principals and other relevant stakeholders should provide adequate number of teachers, learning resources, classrooms and capacity development for teachers to address the gaps in curriculum instruction management in secondary schools.