COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MALE AND FEMALE PRINCIPALS’ LEADERSHIP ROLE PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

The study compared male and female principals’ leadership role performance in secondary schools in Anambra State. Three research questions guided the study and Three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted 6,382 teachers in state government owned secondary schools in the six education zones of Anambra State. A sample size of 2,439 teachers was drawn using multi-stage sampling procedure. A researchers’ developed instrument titled “Principals’ Role Performance Questionnaire” (PRPQ) structured on a four point scale and validated by three experts was used for data collection. The internal consistency of the instrument was ascertained using Cronbach’s Alpha and this yielded reliability coefficients of 0.84, 0.86, and 0.81 for the three parts of the PRPQ. Of the 2,439 copies of the instrument administered, 1,860 were retrieved and used for the analyses. Mean score was used to analyze the research questions and t-test for testing the hypotheses. The findings of the study shows that teachers perceived male principals performance in maintenance of discipline and management of conflict to be greater than that of their female counterparts. Teachers perceived male and female principals performance on supervision of instruction to be the same. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the government should as a matter of urgency organize training programs for the principals on strategies for maintaining discipline in the schools. The State Government should also consider appointing male principals to those schools worst-hit by indiscipline