Abstract

This study examined the relationship between professional development and the managerial effectiveness of school administrators in public secondary schools in Abia State, Nigeria. Three objectives, three research questions and three null hypotheses guided the enquiry, which treated in-service training; workshops, seminars and conferences; and mentoring and coaching as the working dimensions of professional development. Anchored on Human Capital Theory and Andragogy, the study adopted a correlational survey design. The population comprised 732 school administrators (244 principals and 488 vice principals) across the Aba, Umuahia and Ohafia education zones, from which a sample of 259 was drawn through proportionate stratified random sampling using the Taro Yamane formula. Data were gathered with two researcher-developed instruments, the Professional Development Questionnaire (PDQ) and the Managerial Effectiveness of School Administrators Questionnaire (MESAQ), which were validated by three experts and yielded Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.84 and 0.87 respectively. Of the 259 copies administered, 241 (93.1%) were retrieved in usable form. Pearson product-moment correlation answered the research questions, while the hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance through simple linear regression, with a multiple regression model estimating the joint contribution of the three dimensions. Results revealed high positive relationships between managerial effectiveness and both in-service training (r = 0.68) and mentoring and coaching (r = 0.72), and a moderate positive relationship with workshops, seminars and conferences (r = 0.59); all three null hypotheses were rejected. Mentoring and coaching accounted for the largest share of variance in managerial effectiveness (51.8%). The study concluded that sustained, practiceembedded professional development is a strong correlate of how well administrators plan, supervise, manage resources and relate with host communities.