Curriculum Leadership Roles of Senior High Schools Heads and Student Academic Performance in the Northern Region of Ghana

Abstract

The study explored the effects of the curriculum leadership roles of heads of senior high schools on their students’ academic performance within the Northern Region of Ghana. The study is nested in the pragmatic worldview and therefore, the strategies of inquiry included quantitative and qualitative approaches. The research design was, thus, a sequential explanatory mixed method using the cross-sectional survey. The stratified random and census were. The study explored the effects of the curriculum leadership roles of heads of senior high schools on their students’ academic performance within the Northern Region of Ghana. The study is nested in the pragmatic worldview and therefore, the strategies of inquiry included quantitative and qualitative approaches. The research design was, thus, a sequential explanatory mixed method using the cross-sectional survey. The stratified random and census were used to select a sample size of 482, constituting 467 teachers and 15 heads of schools respectively. However, 445 of teacher respondents submitted completed questionnaire. Questionnaire, interviews and focus group discussions were used in the collection of data. The inferential statistics such as Kruskal Wallis test, Spearman’s Rank Order correlation and binary logistic regression were used to measure the differences amongst the school categories and the relationship and effects of curriculum leadership roles on students’ academic performance respectively. The qualitative data collected were analysed thematically to present an in-depth view of the results of the quantitative analysis. It was found out that, out of the eight predictors of high academic performance, only four emerged significant which are planning of activities, monitoring of teachers’ lesson delivery, monitoring of students learning and creating conducive learning environment. Thus, the study concludes that the roles played by heads of schools vary from one school Category to another with the highest level of involvement being in Category 3 SHSs and the lowest in Category 1 SHSs. The study recommends that all heads of schools should build teams that will be interested in promoting collaborative teaching and learning necessary to motivate both teachers and students to work hard for better results used to select a sample size of 482, constituting 467 teachers and 15 heads of schools respectively. However, 445 of teacher respondents submitted completed questionnaire. Questionnaire, interviews and focus group discussions were used in the collection of data. The inferential statistics such as Kruskal Wallis test, Spearman’s Rank Order correlation and binary logistic regression were used to measure the differences amongst the school categories and the relationship and effects of curriculum leadership roles on students’ academic performance respectively. The qualitative data collected were analysed thematically to present an in-depth view of the results of the quantitative analysis. It was found out that, out of the eight predictors of high academic performance, only four emerged significant which are planning of activities, monitoring of teachers’ lesson delivery, monitoring of students learning and creating conducive learning environment. Thus, the study concludes that the roles played by heads of schools vary from one school Category to another with the highest level of involvement being in Category 3 SHSs and the lowest in Category 1 SHSs. The study recommends that all heads of schools should build teams that will be interested in promoting collaborative teaching and learning necessary to motivate both teachers and students to work hard for better results.