Principals’ Application of Instructional Leadership Practices for Secondary School Effectiveness in Oyo State

This study ascertained the principals’ application of instructional leadership practices for secondary school effectiveness in Oyo State. Two research questions guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 8,701 which were made of 969 principals and 7,732 teachers in public secondary school principals in Oyo State. Proportionate Stratified sampling technique was used to draw 871 respondents which were made up of 97 principals and 774 teachers. Two versions of a 18 items questionnaire titled ‘‘Principals’ Application of Instructional Leadership Practices Questionnaire (PAILPQI)’’ and PAILPQII’’ respectively’’ were used as the instrument for data collection. The instruments were subjected to face validation by three experts; two in Department of Educational Management and Policy and the other in Measurement and Evaluation from the Department of Educational Foundations, all from Nnamdi Azikiwe University. The Cronbach alpha was used to ascertain the reliability of the instruments which yielded the index value of 0.82 and 0.76 for PAILPQI and PAILPQII respectively. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while z-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed among others that there is no significant difference in the mean rating of principals and teachers on principals’ application of instructional supervision practices for secondary school effectiveness in secondary schools in Oyo State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that school principals should regularly monitor teachers’ instructional delivery and their level of compliance to school schedules in order to enhance teachers’ commitment to teaching.