ABSTRACT

The study examined the influence of occupational stress on the Administrative Effectiveness of Secondary School Principals in Enugu State of Nigeria. The research design adopted for the study was expo facto research design. Six research questions guided the study. A sample of 328 respondents comprising of school principals was drawn from the 328 principals in Enugu State through the use of census sampling technique since population was small. The instrument was a researcher's self-made structured questionnaire built on a 4-point scale. The face validity was done by three experts from Educational Administration and Planning, Measurement and Evaluation and Educational Guidance and Connseling; all from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The reliably test for the instrument was established using Cronbach Alpha method and an index value of 0.80 was obtained. The data collected from the research questions were answered using mean and standard deviations to answer the research questions. The result of the analyses revealed that the secondary school principals' occupational stress influences their decision making process only to a low extent; principals' occupational stress influences conflict management to a high extent but not to a very high extent in Enugu State secondary schools; principals' occupational stress influences school communication network to a high extent but not to a very high extent; principals' occupational stress influences maintenance of interpersonal relationship with subordinate only to a low extent; and principals' occupational stress influences management of school disciplines only to a low extent. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the principals should have a good interpersonal relationship with their staff in order to reduce occupational stress and stimulate administrative effectiveness.