The relationship between school principals‟ leadership behaviors and the students‟ academic achievements: the case of secondary schools in buno bedelle zone

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to identify the relationship between school principal leadership behavior and student academic achievement of secondary schools of Buno Bedele Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. The study was used both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study included eight secondary schools in Buno Bedele zone. 154 teachers, 5 supervisors, 8 principals, 9 vice principals, 8 PTA chairpersons and 8 student representatives were also included in the study by using available methods. The study was adopted correlation research design that enables the researcher to easily establish the relationship between academic achievement and school principal leadership behavior in Buno Bedele zone. The result of the study indicates that about 76.27% (scored 2 point and above) of the students’ academic achievement on EGSECE were good while about 23.73% (scored less than 2 point) were bad.The findings of the study revealed that change oriented leadership behavior had positive(0.652) influence on students’ academic achievement, while relation oriented leadership behavior and task oriented leadership behavior had a negative influence (-0.338 and -0.844) respectively, on students’ academic achievement. The study revealed that unless principals are well equipped with the knowledge and skills in school leadership, they would not be able to improve students’ academic achievement significantly. The studies also reveal that change oriented leadership behavior (transformational leadership) were increase students’ academic achievement. Generally, since change oriented behavior leadership includes both relation and task oriented leadership and it was democratic in behavior, it improves students’ academic achievement. Therefore, the school principals should make a teacher participatory, highly imaginative and creative, use innovative teaching methods and also should have common understanding and shared value; the REB, WEO, ZEB in collaboration with MoE, are advised to organize or develop skill of educational planning management and leadership of principals, seminars and workshops for school principals on how to use the change oriented leadership behavior effectively in their schools based on the situation and to enhance their capacity and also the school leaders should improve the challenges affects the students’ academic achievements by solving admirative with staff, filling skill gap through continuous advice and follow up, regular meeting with stakeholders.