HEADTEACHER COMMUNICATION STYLES AND TEACHER PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NAKAPIRIPIRIT DISTRICT, IN KARAMOJA SUB-REGION, UGANDA

Abstract

The study looked at how head teachers' communication strategies affected secondary school teachers' performance in the Karamoja sub-region of northeastern Uganda's Nakapiripirit District. The study specifically aimed to determine how the use of passive communication styles by head teachers, aggressive communication styles, passive-aggressive communication styles, and assertive communication styles affected the performance of teachers in secondary schools in the Nakapiripirit District. The study used a cross-sectional survey research design, gathering data from 124 respondents using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Purposive and simple random samplings were used to choose the respondents, and in-person interviews and a self-administered questionnaire were used to collect data. Descriptive and inferential statistics produced by the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS-version 20) were used to evaluate the quantitative data, and thematic and content analyses were used to study the qualitative data. The study found out that for objective one, at R2 .085; p=.008 < .05; for objective two, at R2 .064; p=.022 < .05; for objective three, at R2 .333; p=.000 < .05; for objective four, R2 .127; p=.001 < .05; and overall, at R2 .358; p=.000 < .05. The study concluded that Headteachers’ application of passive communication style accounts for 8.5% of teacher performance and has a significant effect on teacher performance in the secondary schools; Headteachers’ application of aggressive communication style accounts for 6.4% of teacher performance which also has a significant effect on teacher performance in the secondary schools; Headteachers’ application of passive-aggressive communication style accounts for 33.3% of the teacher performance which has a strong significant effect on teacher performance in the secondary schools; Headteachers’ application of assertive communication style accounts for 12.7% of the teacher performance which also has a significant effect on teacher performance in the secondary schools; and overall, headteacher communication styles account for 35.8% change in teacher performance which have a strong significant effect on teacher performance in the secondary schools in Nakapiripirit District. The study recommends among other things that head teachers should utilize a blend of the four communication styles to get the best results regarding teacher performance in schools.

Key words: Headteacher Communication Styles, teacher performance, secondary schools, Nakapiripirit district, Uganda.