Critical-Thinking Skills of Principals' as Correlate to Teachers' Job Performance in Post-Basic Schools in North-East Nigeria

The study investigated principals’ critical thinking skills as a strategic management correlate of 
teachers’ job performance in Post-Basic Schools in North-East, Nigeria. The purpose of the study 
was to determine the extent of principals’ critical thinking skills in post basic schools in North East 
Nigeria, to also examine the relationship between principals’ critical-thinking skills and [teachers’ 
job performance] and to assess whether teachers’ job performance differs significantly across 
principals’ critical thinking skill level. 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 to 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’ Critical Thinking  Skills Questionnaire (PCTSQ) which was responded by teachers, 
and structured questionnaire tagged “Teachers’ Job Performance Questionnaire (TJPQ) was 
administered and responded to 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 0.71 for Principal Motivation Skills Questionnaire, 
0.67 for Teachers’ Job Performance Questionnaire. The findings of the study revealed Principals’ 
showed high critical-thinking competence (M = 3.51, SD = 0.61). Regression analysis showed that 
critical-thinking skills significantly predicted teachers’ job performance (β = 0.73, p < 0.001; R² = 
0.53). ANOVA confirmed the model’s significance (F (1, 590) = 84.7, p < 0.001) with a large effect 
size (ω² ≈ 0.53).  Recommendations made based on the findings include among others that; 
teachers’ should be assigned subjects or courses to teach based on their area of specialization, 
teachers’ should be praised at all times and workload be reduced, teachers’ welfare, promotion 
payment of salaries and allowances should be regular and consistent.