Thesis:

Influence of heads of institutions’ instructional leadership practices on teachers’ work performance in public comprehensive schools in nakuru county, kenya

School systems effectiveness is largely a function of heads of institutions’ instructional leadership practices and teachers’ work performance. In realizing quality of education as envisaged in Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the fourth Sustainable Development Goal, the heads of institutions are expected to embrace appropriate instructional leadership practices. Recent reports on education in Kenya raises concerns with regard to teachers’ work performance in respect to pedagogical knowledge, skills and practices in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of heads of institutions’ instructional leadership practices on teachers’ work performance in public comprehensive schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. The study objectives were: to establish the influence of instructional resource allocation by heads of institutions on teachers’ work performance; to examine the influence of instructional supervision by heads of institutions on teachers’ work performance; to establish the influence of facilitation of professional development opportunities by heads of institutions on teachers’ work performance; and to determine the influence of facilitation of incentives by heads of institutions on teachers’ work performance in public comprehensive schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. Hallinger and Murphy's (1985) Model of Instructional Leadership and Campbell et al.'s (1993) Theory of Job Performance informed the study. The study used mixed methods research approach, and adopted the convergent parallel design. Quantitative and qualitative research was conducted simultaneously in a single phase to collect and analyze data. The target population comprised 57800 pupils, 7741 teachers and 680 heads of institutions from 680 schools together with 11 QASOs. A sample of 68 comprehensive schools were selected through cluster sampling technique, 60 pupils were selected through simple random sampling, while 329 teachers, 68 heads of institutions and 9 QASOs were selected purposively. The study used a total sample of 466 respondents. The study employed focus group discussion guide for pupils, questionnaire for teachers, interview schedule for heads of institutions and QASOs and document analysis checklist. A pilot study of the instruments was conducted in 7 public comprehensive schools in Baringo County with a sample size of 6 pupils, 35 teachers, 7 heads of institutions and 1 QASO. Quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire utilized descriptive and inferential statistics. Frequency counts and percentages described the data. Inferential statistics used were Spearman rank correlation and regression analysis. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The findings were presented as frequencies and percentages in tables. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically and presented in narrative forms. The study established that instructional resource allocation and instructional supervision by heads of institutions had a statistically significant influence on teachers’ work performance. Facilitation of professional development opportunities and incentives had no statistically significant influence on teachers’ work performance in public comprehensive schools. The study concluded that heads of institutions’ instructional leadership practices had an influence on teachers’ work performance in public comprehensive schools in Nakuru County.