ABSTRACT

The study investigated perceived influence of record-keeping on principals’ administration of secondary schools in Umuahia North Local Government Area, Abia State. Five objectives, five research questions were developed and five hypotheses formulated for the study at 0.05 level of significance. The design of the study was descriptive survey design. The population of 271 respondents comprising 254 teachers and 17 principals was sampled using census sampling technique since the population of the study was not much and was manageable by the researcher to study the entire population which comprised teachers and principals in the 17 public senior secondary schools in Umuahia North Local Government Area, Abia State. The instrument for data collection of this study was a researcher’s developed questionnaire. The questionnaire was titled “Perceived Influence of Record-Keeping on Principals’ Administration of Secondary Schools Questionnaire” (PIRKPASSQ). The instrument was validated by three experts in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike and Cronbach Alpha coefficient was used for the internal consistency of the items. The result gave a reliability coefficient of 0.95. The coefficient indicated a high consistency, implying that the instrument was reliable. Direct approach was employed in the collection of data and a total of 247 copies of the questionnaire were distributed to 231 teachers and 16 principals, and 181 copies were successfully retrieved, indicating 73% percent return. Frequency and percentage were used to answer research question one, mean and standard deviation were used to answer research question two to five, while the inferential statistics of t-test was used to test the four null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed among others that statutory record keeping influenced effective administration in secondary schools. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that secondary school principals and teachers should regularly attend conferences, seminars and workshops at least twice every year to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge on the influence of statutory record keeping on effective administration of secondary schools.