Principals’ Management Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance, in Public Secondary Schools in Imenti North Sub-County of Meru County

Abstract

Performance of students in K.C.S.E in North Imenti Sub-County has been declining. This trend has been of concern to the county and country at large. Arguably, the low achievement is associated with principals’ management strategies. The study established the effects of principals’ management strategies on students’ academic performance. Four objectives guided the study; determined effect of formulation, implementation, supervision and resources management on students’ academic performance. The research used descriptive survey research design. The study was based on two administrative management theories. The targeted population was 41 principals of public secondary schools. The sample size was 41 principals and who were obtained using census method. Piloting of instruments comprised 10% of the sample size which was done in neighboring Meru Central Sub County. The construct and content validity were accessed. The reliability of the research instruments was determined by half- split Spearman correlation coefficient after which corrections and adjustments were done to the instruments. The researcher used structured questionnaire for all the categories of sampled respondents. The questionnaires were delivered to the respondents by the researcher and allowed them time of one week to fill and then pick up them later. principal management strategy has strong positive significant association with academic performance of public secondary schools’ student in Imenti North Sub-County. Further, the study revealed that all the four predictor variables in this study jointly explains 54.3% (Adjusted R2= .743) of the total variations in academic performance. It implied that 54.3% of changes in mean score were explained by the principals’ management performance. To assess if the model was valid and if reached the statistical significance, analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis was conducted. The ANOVA model indicated an F statistic of 27.721 and P value of 0.0005. The P value being less than the conventional significance value (P < .05); the proposed model was therefore statistically significant (good fit) in predicting the dependent variable. All the predictor variables had identical (Likert) scales, and also the constant value in the model were statistically significant (p<0.05), hence the use of unstandardized B-coefficients to construct a regression equation model. The multiple regressions result indicated that strategy formulation, X1 (β1 = 0.763, P = 0.001); strategy implementation, X2 (β2= 0.167, P =0.007); supervision strategy, X3 (β3= 0.286, P =0.036); and resources management strategy, X4 (β4= 0.217, P =.004) significantly and positively affect students’ academic performance in Imenti North public secondary schools. Thus, the hypothesized model was; Y = 3.642+0.763X1 +0.167X2+ 0.286X3+0.217X4. The study concluded that revealed that principal management strategy has strong positive significant association with academic performance of public secondary schools’ student in Imenti North Sub-County. Hence, principal management strategies have a substantial impact on academic performance in public secondary schools. Further, the study determined that, when all other independent variables were hold constant, Strategy formulation was found to have the biggest impact on the academic performance of the students. The study recommends principals should ensure they apply management strategy approaches that guarantee student performance. The study proposes that, a study should be undertaken to discover what is the impact of other principals’ management strategies on student academic performance representing 45.7 percent among schools in Imenti North Sub-County.