PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS PERCEPTION OF INSTRUCTIONAL SUPERVISION AS A TOOL FOR IMPROVING TEACHERS PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN AWKA EDUCATION ZONE OF ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The main purpose the study was to determine principals and teachers perception of instructional supervision as a tool for improving teachers’ performance in secondary schools in Awka Education Zone. Two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study. The study was carried out in Awka Education Zone of Anambra State. The population of the study comprised 61 principals and 1345 teachers in the 61 secondary schools in the zone. Unbiased sampling method of simple random sampling was used to select twenty (20) schools with 20 principals from Awka Education Zone of Anambra State, fifteen (15) teachers each from the selected schools in Awka Education Zone of Anambra State. A total of 320 respondents (20 principals and 300 teachers) were used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Questionnaire on Instructional Supervision as tool for Improving Teachers Performance”. The instrument was developed by the researcher and was validated by three experts from the Faculty of Education, Department of Educational Administration and Planning and Measurement and Evaluation of Enugu State University of Science and Technology. The reliability was ascertained through test retest method of estimating reliability. The two sets of scores obtained were correlated using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and 0.75 were obtained from the two instruments used for the study while the reliability coefficient for the instrument for the principal and the teachers are 0.71 and 0.72. The data collected were analyzed using mean and t-test. Findings revealed that principals and teachers in secondary schools in Awka Education Zone to a high extent perceive instructional supervision as a tool for improving teachers’ performance because it helps the teachers acquire new skills, stimulate love for the profession, develop teachers professionally, and creates good rapport with the teachers. Findings also showed that principals and teachers were in agreement in their perception of instructional supervision as a tool for improving teachers’ performance. Based on these findings it was recommended that the State Ministry of Education should reinforce supervision based training and retraining, seminars, workshops and refresher courses for secondary school’s principals.