INSTITUTIONAL ETHICAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES FOR ENHANCING VALUEBASED EDUCATION IN FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined institutional ethical leadership practices for enhancing value-based education in federal universities in South-East, Nigeria. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. Cross-sectional descriptive survey research design was adopted. The population of the study comprised all the 2,182 (73 administrative staff and 2,109 academic staff) from the Faculties of Education in the six federal universities in South-East, Nigeria. Using simple random sampling technique, four universities were selected. Taro Yamane’s formula was used to determine a minimum sample size of 336; hence, a sample of 764 (26 administrative staff and 738 academic staff), which represents 35% of the population was drawn using proportionate stratified random sampling technique. The instrument that was used for data collection was a self-developed 17-item questionnaire entitled: “Institutional Ethical Leadership Practices for Enhancing Value-Based Education Questionnaire (IELPEVBEQ).” It was structured after the four-point modified Likert rating scale, and was duly validated by five experts. The internal consistency of the instrument was determined using Cronbach’s Alpha statistical method. Reliability coefficients of 0.85 and 0.82 were obtained for the various sections of the instrument respectively, which showed that the instrument was reliable. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while z-test was used in testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed, among others, that institutional ethical leadership is practised to high extent in fostering value-based education in federal universities in South-East, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that, lecturers should always transmit social values and norms by modelling ethical behaviour such as integrity, honesty, equity, fairness, respect, empathy, among others that will inspire students to see them as their role models.