| dc.description.abstract | Despite significant roles played by Principals including instilling student discipline,
learning institutions in Kenya, especially public secondary schools, have been faced with
different cases of unrest emanating from students, teachers, and other staff members.
Oyaro (2005) maintained that each school in Kenya has its own unique way of
maintaining discipline in the student. The purpose of this study was to investigate
perspectives on effects of Principals’ leadership styles on student discipline in public
secondary schools in Vihiga Sub-County, Kenya. Objectives that guided the study were:
to find out perspectives on effects of Principals’ transactional, transformational, laisserfaire
leadership style on student discipline in public secondary schools; to establish
perspectives on effects of Principals’ leadership styles on strategies used in instilling
students discipline in public secondary schools. A descriptive research design was used
and was informed by Social learning theory as well as Systems theory. The target
population was 27 Principals, 321 teachers, and 3083 form three students from 27 public
secondary schools in Vihiga Sub-County. A sample size of 431 participants was sought
using simple random sampling (89% Principals,10% form three students and30%
teachers). Data was collected using questionnaires and interviews. Reliability was
determined through test-retest method and calculated using Pearson’s(r) giving an index
of 0.820. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics and inferential
statistics, and the qualitative data was analysed using thematic analysis. SPSS version
22.0 assisted in analysis of descriptive statistics. Findings of the study showed that there
was statistically positive correlation between Principals’ transactional leadership and
student discipline (n=289; r = 0.605; p<0.05);transactional leadership style explains about
36% of the variability in student discipline.There was statistically positive correlation
between the level of Principals’ transformational leadership style and student discipline
(n=289; r = 0.510; p<0.05); transformational leadership style explains about 26% of the
variability in student discipline. There was statistically significant, though negative,
correlation between the level of Principals’ laissez-faire leadership style and student
discipline (n=289; r= -0.463; p<0.05); laissez faire leadership style explains about 21% of
the variability in student discipline. The multiple correlation coefficients, R, between the
three leadership styles and the dependent variable, student discipline was 0.899.
Therefore, the independent variables explained 80.5 % variability in student discipline.
The study concluded that Principals leadership styles are critical in instilling student
discipline in Vihiga Sub-County. The result of the study established that varied strategies
existed in instilling student discipline in secondary schools in Vihiga Sub-County, based
on Principals’ leadership style. For instance, 58.8% of the students and 56.2% of teachers
indicated that their Principal usually talks about his/her most important values and
beliefs, as a strategy of preventing deviant behaviour. The study would assist the policy
makers in the Ministry of Education to formulate viable policies on the handling of
student discipline. The study would be useful to teachers, students, parents, and
guardians in secondary schools. A study on perspectives of effects of Principals’
leadership styles on student discipline in private secondary schools in Vihiga SubCounty-
Kenya would expound the understanding of the current problem. | en_US |