DECODING VIEWS AND SENTIMENTS OF PROGRAM HEADS TOWARDS THE SUPERVISION OF INSTRUCTION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

The purpose of this study was to decode the hidden views and sentiments from the collated written responses of Eastern Samar State University’s Program Heads regarding supervision of instructions amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This study utilized Exploratory Sequential Mixed Method to explore and understand the perspective or sentiments of Eastern Samar State University program heads towards supervision of instruction in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected/collated from the participants indirectly using an interview questionnaire containing an open-ended question. The same were processed and analyzed using an open-source machine learning software called Orange toolbox (Demsar et al., 2013) wherein pre-processing, sentiment analysis and topic modelling built-in tools were utilized. The results showed that the most prominent words generated by the machine learning tool from the text file of responses are the words pandemic, performance, program, learning, difficult, supervision, instruction, internet, faculty, online students, teaching, delivery confusing, challenging, poor and connectivity. The dominant sentiment associated thereof lean towards negative polarity which implicate negative sentiments. Hidden topics were automatically generated by the machine which allowed the researchers to come up with the following related themes: “Impact of pandemic in the supervision of instruction of faculty and learning of students”, “Challenges in the delivery of instruction and supervision due to poor internet connectivity”, and “Strategic role of online modalities and connectivity in supervision and delivery of instruction”. There are limited researches navigating in text mining and sentiment analysis with the use of Orange toolbox particularly those that deals with supervision of instruction in a Philippine State University. There are related studies using machine learning software, but nothing like this study directed towards a specific gap in specific locale. KEYWORDS: Pandemic, Latent Semantic Indexing, Orange Toolbox, Sentiment Analysis, Thematic Analysis.

Differences in principals’ experience on their instructional leadership behaviours in colleges of education in Ghana

The study assessed the differences in Principals’ instructional leadership behaviours based on experiences (number of years served as Principal) in Colleges of Education (CsOE) in Ghana using the descriptive survey design. The population of the study was all Principals from the forty-two (42) CsOE in Ghana. The study sampled thirty-six (36) Principals using the simple random sampling technique. The Principal Instructional Leadership Behaviours (PILB) scale was used to collect data. Means, standard deviations and the one-way ANOVA were used to analyse the research question and to test for the hypothesis respectively. The study revealed that Principals often promote collaboration among tutors, provide support for tutors’ work, provide an induction for new tutors and promote in-service training for tutors in CsOE in Ghana. However, the findings from the study gleaned that supervision of instruction was sometimes exhibited by Principals in CsOE in Ghana. The study further found that Principals’ instructional leadership behaviours differed when they were grouped according to their experience. It was concluded that though Principals provide instructional leadership for the benefit of tutors and the general teaching and learning climate of CsOE in Ghana, their instructional supervision should be improved. The study yielded a central recommendation that Principals of CsOE need to improve upon their supervision of instruction to promote the continuous professional development of tutors.

Correlates of Effective Instructional Supervision in Bayelsa State Secondary Schools

The purpose of this study is to examine the correlates of effective instructional supervision in secondary schools inBayelsa State. A critical examination of all the policies and personnel put in place by the government to achieve theaim of supervision of instruction in secondary school in Bayelsa State were elucidated. The study involved empiricaldesign with the stratified population of fifteen (15) secondary schools, comprising three hundred (300) teachers andsixty (60) supervisors (Principals) randomly selected from three geo-political zones (Sub divided into: Riverine,Upland and Midland). The research instrument used for the study was rating scale consisting of five (3) researchquestions. The analysis involved the use of mean and standard deviation, why the hypotheses were analyzed usingZ-test at 0.05 level of significance.The results of the analysis indicated that: demography, status/personality and perceptions are not a major factor thatinfluences supervision of instruction in schools, but quality and number of teachers, incentives and motivation,quality and number of supervisors, and school location are the correlates factors that influence supervision ofinstruction in schools. Conclusively, the researcher recommends that supervision is very important for effectiveinstruction in secondary schools and that government should provide all it takes to motivate teachers as to enhanceregulation of supervision of instruction.