Headteachers’ Commitment to Instructional Supervision in Their Service Periods in Central East and Central West Education Divisions – Malawi

Support towards the provision of more classrooms, adequate teaching-learning resources, and more qualified teachers are the most talked about ways of improving public secondary school students’ achievement in the Central East and Central West Education Divisions. The emphasis on increasing inputs has overshadowed the need to focus on school quality, which reflects effective headteachers commitment to instructional supervision. Although headteachers’ commitment is crucial to public secondary school quality improvement efforts, there is no clear headteachers’ commitment to instructional supervision description. A headteacher’s commitment to instructional supervision questionnaire and a content analysis grid were administered to 277 participants selected from seven service period strata of the public secondary school headteachers’ sampling frame using the stratified random sampling method to collect quantitative data for the mixed-method approach inquiry. For the interpretive strand of the study, a semi-structured interview schedule was used to collect qualitative data from 30 participants that were selected using a strato-purposeful sampling strategy. The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using statistical and thematic analyses, respectively. The study showed that headteachers’ commitment to instructional supervision varied with headteachers service periods, had inter- and intra-service-period variations, was related with the three-component commitment model, had a practised instructional supervision dimension, and was mediated by headteachers’ opinions about headteachership. Significant continuance commitment was noted in the 6 to 10 (0.012), 11 to 15 (0.058) and 16 to 20 (0.045) service periods. Significant normative commitment was noted in the 11 to 15 service period (0.085), while implemented commitment ranged from meets minimum standards to below minimum standards, thus 30% to 0-20% and headteachership developmental stages emerged.