Abstract:
This paper explored the relationship between head teachers’ instructional supervision self-efficacy and pupils’
academic achievement in public primary schools in Kakamega County, Kenya. The study was guided by
Bandura's self-efficacy theory and adopted the correlational research design. It targeted 916 public primary
school head teachers. Stratified, proportionate and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the
282 head teachers who participated in the study. Data was collected using a head teachers’ questionnaire, which
was validated through expert judgement. It was deemed reliable as it yielded a coefficient of 0.871. Data was
analysed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Science. The Pearson’s correlations test was used to
determine the relationship between head teachers’ instructional supervision self-efficacy and pupils’ academic
achievement. The findings indicated that the pupils’ academic achievement was below average while head
teachers’ supervision of instruction self-belief was moderately strong. A positive and statistically significant
relationship was observed between head teachers supervision of instruction self-belief and pupils’ academic
achievement, r(282) = .572, p<.05. This paper concludes there are other factors that affect pupils’ academic
achievement besides head teachers’ instructional supervision self-efficacy. It also concludes that pupils in
schools managed by head teachers with strong instructional supervision beliefs tend to do better academically.
It recommends that to improve achievement, primary school educators should focus on factors which affect it
such as provision of adequate instructional materials, adoption of appropriate teaching approaches, creating a
conducive teaching-learning environment among others. Head teachers’ instructional supervision beliefs should
also be enhanced through training and exposing them to experiences that enhance their self-confidence and
motivation.
