EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS CORRELATE OF TEACHERS’ INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN SOUTH EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and teachers’ instructional leadership in public secondary school in South East, Nigeria. The study adopted a correlational survey design. Two research questions and two null hypotheses formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The population of the study comprised 16023 male and female teachers in the 1140 public secondary schools in 21 education Zones in five states in the South Eastern States of Nigeria. The sample for this study comprised 381 teachers from all the five states in South East Nigeria. The sample is determined using Taro Yamen's 1973 formula, which is suitable for estimating population proportions with a specified degree of accuracy. The instrument for data collection were two sets of the researcher’s self-developed questionnaire titled; “Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (EIQ) and Teachers’ Instructional Leadership (TILQ)”. The instruments for data collection were validated by three experts, two from the Department of Educational Management and one from Science Education, majored in Test and Evaluation all from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. Cronbach alpha statistic was used to determine the internal consistency of EIQ and TILQ which yielded an index of .62, and 81 for EIQ, and TILQ respectively. Five briefed research assistants helped in the administration and collection of the instruments. Data collected were analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation to answer the research questions while linear Regression statistics was used to test all the null hypotheses. Based on the result of the analysis, the study finds that; teachers’ selfawareness significantly to a positive very high extent correlate with teachers’ instructional leadership in public secondary schools in South East; that teachers’ conflict resolution management skills significantly to a positive high extent correlate with teachers’ instructional leadership in public secondary schools in South East. Based on the findings of the study, the researchers recommended that Government should through the ministry of Education, organize regular training for teachers on the effective use of self-awareness while carrying out their instructional delivery and other duties.