Effectiveness of principals’ approaches on management of students’ discipline in public secondary schools in Migori county, Kenya

Abstract

Globally, school heads use various approaches to manage students discipline in institutions. These could include preventive, corrective and positive behaviour reinforcement approaches Legally principals have responsibility in managing students‟ discipline, yet little has been done to assess effectiveness of disciplinary approaches on management of students‟ discipline. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of school principals‟ approaches on management of students‟ discipline in public secondary schools in Migori County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to; investigate effectiveness of preventive approach on students discipline; establish effectiveness of corrective approach on students‟ discipline; determine effectiveness of positive behaviour reinforcement on students discipline and establish factors influencing effectiveness of school principal‟ approaches on students discipline in public secondary schools in Migori County. This study was informed by Operant and Erickson‟s theories. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design with a population consisting of 271 principals, 271 deputy principals, 271 student leaders, 1759 teachers and 10 Sub-county Directors of Education (SCD). 30% was used to select 74 principals, 74 deputy principals, 74 student leaders, 8 SCDs and 317 teachers from Krejcie and Morgan table; a total of 547 respondents. Data was collected using 2 questionnaires; one for Administrators , and the other for teachers while an Interview guide to gather information from SCDs and FGD guide from student leaders. Piloting, involving 10% from each category of the respondents, was done to determine reliability and validity of the research tools. Test-retest method was used to establish reliability by employing Pearson‟s r with a reliability threshold of .70 and above. Face and content validity was determined by experts in Educational Management and Policy and determination of CVI at .85. Quantitative data was analysed using frequency counts, percentages, means, standard deviation and T-test while qualitative data was coded, transcribed and organized thematically. Research ethics were observed during both data collection and reporting of findings. The study established that; the preventive approach on management of student discipline was effective (mean =3.37); corrective approach was also effective (Mean = 2.90) while positive behavior reinforcement was very effective (mean = 3.51).Factors influencing effectiveness of disciplinary approaches was influential mean rating of 3.35. All variable were found to be effective and have a statistically significant relationship between disciplinary approaches and management of student discipline shown. Findings are important to educational administrators, policy makers and planners in understanding how preventive, corrective and positive behavior reinforcement approaches are effective on management of students‟ discipline. The study recommends that there should be guidelines for training peer counselors, integrating withdrawal of privileges to be part of rules and regulations, there should be a vote head for the BOM to reward and give certificates to students with outstanding positive behavior also to develop a working collaboration between parents and teachers for effective management of students‟ discipline.