TEACHER’S LEADERSHIP STYLE AND DISCIPLINE AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS
Abstract
This study investigated teacher’s leadership style and discipline among primary school pupils. The study was conducted in the Oruk Anam Local Government Area. A simple Survey design method was adopted. Eighty (80) school heads were randomly selected from (40) forty out of the (67) sixty seven public primary school in the study area. Three research questions were formulated to guide the study. One instrument was used, Teacher’s Leadership style Questionnaire (T.L.S.Q.) was used to collect data for the study. The data collected from the respondents was analyzed using descriptive mean and standard deviation.
The result reveals that autocratic leadership style practice by teachers influences primary school pupils negatively, Also the result reveal that democratic leadership style practice by teachers influences primary pupils positively. Similarly, the results also reveal that laissez-faire leadership style practice by teachers influences primary school pupils positively. Based on the finding of this study, it was recommended that among others, teachers and school heads should be encouraged to criticize a leadership style that would enhance the good academic performance of pupils in the schools
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background to the Study
Leadership is generally defined as an influence or the art or process of influencing people so that they strive willingly toward the achievement of group goals. This concept is enlarged to include not only willingness to work, but also willingness to work with zeal and confidence. Zeal implies ardor, earnestness, and intensively in the execution of work, confidence implies experience and technical ability.
The leaders are not supposed to stand behind a group to push or to prop; they are to place themselves before the group, as they facilitate progress and inspire the group to accomplish organizational goals example and orchestra leader does the function of a coordinate of sounds. Nkang (2009) noted that leadership denotes a type of behavior that has a group as its reference. Every group of people in any human Endeavour with a specific goal to achieve has some persons as its head who is skilled in the art of leadership. This skill seems to be a compound of a three major ingredients which include.
- The ability to comprehend that human being have differing motivating forces at varying, times and in different situations.
- The ability to inspire others to action
- The ability to act in way that will develop a climate for responding to and arousing interest.
In educational institutions, for instance, the success or failure of the system depends greatly on the leadership style of the administrative head of the institution. The success of an educational institution can be adjudged on the sum total performance of the pupils at the end of their studies. According to Umozunk (208) add that the pupils performance itself can be a considerable extend to be attributed to this leadership style of the institutional head who is either able or not able to properly coordinate activities of individual members of staff in his/her school as well as create good school-community relations.
It is on the forgoing basic that most parents and other stakeholders in the nation’s educational system of blame poor academic performance of their wards or fallen standard of education, the teacher’s poor attitude to work on leadership style of the school head among other variables.
The headmaster as Akpan (2012) puts it are to coordinate both the human and material resources towards the attainment of predetermined objectives of the institutions which they manger social studies pupils are noted for all kinds of understandable behaviors that do not encourage positive academic performance. Teacher’s leadership style and discipline among primary school pupils ,The unwholesome behaviours of these pupils have amplified the already deteriorating image of social studies in the country. This is a serious challenge to the leadership of social studies in primary schools. To remedy the ugly situation calls for all inclusive, result-oriented and appropriate leadership styles in the primary schools in Oruk Anam Local Government Area.
- Statement of the Problems
Teachers have different leadership styles and disciplines performed in the school system. Poor academic performance of pupils in the schools is caused by many factors which include teachers’ leadership styles, parental factors, peer group factor, and school environmental factors, etc.
Also, due to the types of leadership style displayed by schools heads and other teachers tend to be the major factors that influence the performance of primary school pupils. The performance of pupils at all levels in educational institution in Nigeria has attracted most criticism based on kinds of leadership styles and discipline that teachers display in the school system, that some school heads and other teachers are so autocratic, democratic and laisse-faire which at time warrant unexpected acts that give the pupils much fear about their teachers an a does not give them the opportunity to ask questions on what that they understand.
Due to the different types of leadership style and their implication on pupils’ performance, these study some to investigate teachers’ leadership style/discipline and their influence among primary school pupils in Oruk Anam Local Government Area.
TEACHER’S LEADERSHIP STYLE AND DISCIPLINE AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS
- Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to examine teacher’s leadership style and discipline and their influence among primary school pupils in Oruk Anam Local Government Area. Specifically, it is;
- To determine the extent autocratic leadership style influences primary school pupils in Oruk Anam local government Area.
- To determine the extent democratic leadership style influences primary school pupils in Oruk Anam local government Area.
- To determine the extent laissez-faire
leadership style influences primary school pupils in Oruk Anam local government
Area.
- Research Questions
This study will attempt to provide answers to the following questions:
To what extent does autocratic leadership style influence primary school pupils in Oruk Anam Local Government Area?
To what extent does democratic leadership style influence primary school pupils in Oruk Anam Local Government Area?
To what extent does laissez-faire leadership style influence primary school pupils in Oruk Anam Local Government Area?
Significance of the Study
The finding of this study has the primary objective of identifying the types of the leadership style of a teacher in some primary school and the best leadership style to be disciplined in the school system in other to enhance the academic performance of pupils in school.
The finding of this would help prospective administrators in the administration of their schools in order to discover how to create an ideal staff, leadership which can positively influence the performance of the teachers and pupils in the school.
The finding of this study would suggest the nature and type of performance content for the training of prospective principal and for the in-service training of the incumbent principals.
Delimitation of the study
This study was restricted to three leadership style, namely:- Autocratic leadership style, democratic leadership style, and laissez-faire leadership style.
Primary school pupils were considered in Oruk Anam Local Government Area.
Limitation of the study
The limitation of this study includes the following:–
- The time given for the computation of this study was inadequate to make research like this have a wider scope.
- The researcher had difficulty with lack of enough financial resources to help expand the study to cover the entire state.
- The researcher also had difficulty with lack of adequate empirical studies to give this work the required force.
Finally, the researcher overcomes all the state problems been affecting this work.
- Definition of operational terms:–
The following terms are described as they were used in the study:-
- Teachers leadership style:- is the set of skills demonstrated by teachers in order to influence the pupil’s academic performance either positively or negatively.
- Leadership: – is defined as a process of influencing others to facilitate the attainment of organization relevant goals.
- Autocratic leadership: – this is a type of leadership in which the leader is domineering and rules through the use of force and uses his/her legal power to enforce the right discipline.
- Democratic Leadership: – this democratic has respect for every person in the group and leadership responsibilities are shared.
- Laissez-faire:- Literary translation in French is let them do as they wish. The leader here uses little or no more of his/her power thereby giving his subordinate a high degree of independence or “free-reign”.