Amit Choudhury, and Karabi Bhattacharyya
University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM
Pages:248-258
The study explores the relationship between principals’ leadership styles and students’
academic achievement of provincialised secondary schools in Assam. A correlational
descriptive research design was adopted to examine this association. The target
population comprised all provincialised secondary schools affiliated with the Assam
State Board of Secondary Education (SEBA). The accessible population included
principals and students from provincialised schools located in the Kamrup (Metro) and
Kamrup (Rural) districts. A multistage sampling method, combining purposive and simple
random sampling techniques, was employed to select the sample. The final sample
consisted of 40 principals and 400 students from 40 provincialised secondary schools.
Data were collected using two instruments: the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire
(MLQ-5X), revised by Bass and Avolio (1995), (Leader F) to assess principals’ leadership
styles and a structured academic performance record form to collect students’
achievement data from school offices. Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques
including frequency distributions, percentages, means, standard deviations, independent
sample t-tests and the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient were used for
data analysis. The findings revealed that the majority of principals predominantly
exhibited a transformational leadership style. Most students demonstrated a high level
of academic achievement. While no significant difference was found in the leadership
styles of urban and rural principals, a significant difference was observed in the academic
achievement of students based on school location. The study concludes that there is
a statistically significant and strong positive correlation between principals’ leadership
styles particularly transformational leadership and students’ academic achievement.
These findings underscore the importance of effective leadership in fostering improved
educational outcomes in secondary schools