IDIOGRAPHIC LEADERSHIP STYLE AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE LEARNING MOTIVATION AND STUDENT’S ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN MIGORI SUB-COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

Effective leadership in a school has been widely noted as a factor that makes a difference between achievers and non-achievers. Majority (50,183 out of 55,272) of the students who sat for (KCSE) between (2011-2015) in Migori County had average marks (B- and below) which did not guarantee them direct University entry in Kenya. This means that only 5,089 made it to the university between (2011-2015), even though the schools had qualified teachers, adequate resources and facilities. This had caused concern among educational stakeholders who questioned why performance had persistently been low and outcomes unsatisfactory in Migori County. What was not known was the Principals’ idiographic leadership styles and its influence on the learning motivation and students’ academic performance. Motivation by the principal for both teachers and students was perceived as imperative in achieving this. McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y guided the study. The study adopted descriptive survey and correlation research designs. The target population was 189 Principals, 3,780 teachers’ and 32,710 students in all the secondary schools in Migori County. Stratified random sampling was used to select 127 Principals, 350 teachers and 400 students for the study. The results show that idiographic leadership style, and learning motivation and students’ academic performance have a low but positive significant correlation (r=.153, p<.05), meaning that the relationship between idiographic styles and learning motivation and academic performance is very low. This finding implies that perceived idiographic leadership style accounted for about 2.3 percent of the variance in respondents’ score on the learning motivation and students’ academic performance in KCSE exams. This could further imply that the adoption of idiographic leadership style influences learning motivation and academic performance to a very small extent.