LOCUS CONTROL AS CORRELATE OF TEACHERS’ INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN SOUTH EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between locus control 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 three sets of the researcher’s self-developed questionnaire titled; “Locus Control Questionnaire (LCQ) 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 LCQ and TILQ which yielded an index of .72, and 81 for LCQ, 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; internal locus of control significantly to a positive very high extent correlate with teachers’ instructional leadership in public secondary schools in South East; that external locus of control significantly to a positive moderate extent correlate with teachers’ instructional leadership in public secondary schools in South East.  Based on the findings of the study, the researchers recommended that secondary school principals should endeavor to organize regular workshops to teachers on how to effectively explore internal locus of control while carrying out their instructional delivery; that more experienced teachers should mentor the younger ones on how best to rely and trust on their own potentials and abilities rather than relying on external factors before immediate and vital actions are taken in instructional delivery.