Principals’ Classroom Visitation and its Influence on Teachers’ Pedagogical Practices in Public Secondary Schools at Bauchi State, Nigeria

This study sought to determine the influence of principals’ classroom visitation on teachers’ pedagogical practices in public secondary schools of Bauchi state, Nigeria. The objectives that guided the study, were first, to examine principals’ implementation of classroom visits in public secondary schools; secondly to find out the effect of principals’ classroom visitation on pedagogical practices of the teachers and make recommendations for improvement of teachers’ pedagogical practices. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was employed for the study. The participants in the study comprised 29 principals and 385 teachers randomly selected from the public secondary schools in Bauchi state. Questionnaires and document observation checklist were used for data collection. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the quantitative data with the aid of SPSS. The qualitative data were analyzed using thematic techniques. Simple linear regression analysis was used to test the research hypothesis at α=.05 significance levels. Findings of the study revealed that the majority of principals in public secondary schools in Bauchi state did not execute procedural lesson observation. Also, most principals did not provide teachers with feedback on observed instructions. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that the principals’ classroom visitation has statistically significant effect on teachers’ pedagogical practices in public secondary schools (R=.138, F (1,373) =59.691 p<.05). Given this evidence, the null hypothesis that principals’ classroom visitation does not significantly influence teachers’ pedagogical practices was rejected. And the alternative hypothesis that principals’ classroom visitation significantly influences teachers’ pedagogical practices was accepted. The study recommends that Ministry of Education Bauchi state should provide a specific in-service capacity building for principals on techniques of organizing and conducting procedural classroom visits to enhance instructions.