Relationship Between Principals' Multi-Tasking Skills And Teachers' Job Performance In Post-Basic Schools IN North-East Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated relationship between principals’ multi-tasking skills and teachers’ job performance in Post-Basic Schools in North-East, Nigeria. The purpose of the study was to determine the extent of principals’ multi-tasking skills in post basic schools in North East Nigeria, to also examine the relationship between principals ’multi-tasking skills and teachers job performance and to assess whether teachers’ job performance differs significantly across principals’ multi-tasking levels. Three research questions were answered and three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the correlation survey research design. Stratified and random sampling techniques were used in selecting the sample of the study. The population was 19,797 respondents in Post-Basic Schools from four states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, and Taraba) drawn from North-East zone, Nigeria. The sample for the study was 592 determined using Taro Yamane formula and comprised of 76 principals and 516 teachers. The instruments for data collection were two, a structured questionnaire tagged “Principals’ Multi Tasking Skills Questionnaire (PMTSQ) which was completed by teachers, and structured questionnaire tagged “Teachers’ Job Performance Questionnaire (TJPQ) was administered and completed by principals to measure teachers’ performance. The instruments were face validated and the internal consistency for the instruments was determined using Cronbach Alpha method. Reliability yielded 0.73 for Principal Multi Tasking Skills Questionnaire, 0.69 for Teachers’ Job Performance Questionnaire. The findings of the study revealed Principals demonstrated a high level of multi-tasking competence (M = 3.42, SD = 0.61). Regression analysis revealed that multitasking skills significantly predicted teachers’ job performance (β = 0.87, p < 0.001; R² = 0.75). ANOVA confirmed a significant difference in teacher performance across multi-tasking levels (F (1, 590) = 226.3, p < 0.001) with a large effect size (ω² ≈ 0.75). Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that principals' multi-tasking skills was significantly related to teachers' job performance in Post-Basic Schools in North-East Nigeria. Recommendations made based on the findings include among others that; ministry of education should organize workshops focusing on multi-tasking, time management and delegation, introduce structured task sharing models to mitigate principal burnout, include multi-tasking competence indicators in principals’ appraisal system, incorporate strategic management and multi-tasking modules into principal training curricula.