ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to determine the relationship between Demographic Variables and Administrative Effectiveness of Secondary School Principals in South South, Nigeria. The population consisted of all the 6487 principals and vice principals (administration) of public and private government approved secondary schools from six South South states of Nigeria namely Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers states. The sample was 362 respondents (principals and vice principals (administration) drawn from the three South South states of Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Delta. This was determined using multi-stage sampling procedure. Six research questions were asked and six null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 significant level to direct the study. Data collection was carried out with the use of two sets of researcher-developed questionnaire titled “Demographic Variables Questionnaire (DVQ) and Principals’ Administrative Effectiveness Questionnaire (PAEQ). The instruments were validated and trial tested using the test retest reliability measure using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Statistics. This gave a reliability coefficient of 0.81 and 0.83 respectively. The research questions were answered using Pearson Product Moment Correlation, while the null hypotheses were tested using Linear Regression. The result indicated significant relationships between the variables. Findings on the research questions indicated positive relationships between school ownership, school type, school location, school size, school climate, school mapping and administrative effectiveness of secondary school principals in the South South. More so, the results of the hypotheses testing revealed that principals’ administrative effectiveness in South South, Nigeria relate significantly with school ownership, school type, school location, school size, school climate and school mapping. This led to the retention of the null hypotheses. On the basis of this, it was concluded that demographic school variables viz school ownership; School type, school location, school size, school climate and school mapping are positively related to administrative effectiveness of secondary school principals in South South, Nigeria. It was recommended among other things, that as government takes care of the public secondary schools, they should equally make provisions for private schools to ensure general effective administration of schools by the principals. Besides, government should ensure adequate supervision of the activities of principals in all schools. This is to make all principals sit up to their duties to achieve effective school administration in all schools irrespective of the school type.