Influence of Principals’ Democratic Leadership Style on Curriculum Design Coverage in Public Senior Schools in Kapseret Sub-County, Kenya.

Author: Caroline Jeptanui Rono, Michael Kimotho, Peter Koros

Date: 2026

Abstract: Timely coverage of the prescribed curriculum depends heavily on how school principals lead teachers. This paper reports the first objective of a wider study: to determine the influence of principals’ democratic leadership style on curriculum design coverage in public senior schools in Kapseret Sub-County, Kenya. The study was anchored on Leadership Behavior Theory and adopted a convergent mixed-methods design. From a target population of 243 teachers, 22 principals, 66 student representatives and one Quality Assurance and Standards Officer (QASO), 75 teachers were selected through stratified random sampling and seven principals, 21 student representatives and the QASO were selected purposively. Teachers completed a structured Likert-scale questionnaire (69 of 75 returned; 92.0%), while the other participants took part in indepth interviews. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression, and qualitative data were analyzed thematically. Teachers agreed that their principals practised democratic leadership (M = 3.90, SD = 0.99), with 73.9% to 81.2% agreeing with each consultation, participation, delegation, teamwork and communication item. Democratic leadership had a positive and statistically significant influence on curriculum design coverage (B = 0.241, β = .268, t = 3.394, p = .001), and the null hypothesis was rejected. It was the second strongest predictor in a model that explained 70.9% of the variance in coverage (R² = .709). Interview data confirmed that consultation, teamwork and open communication build teacher ownership of the syllabus. The paper recommends continuous professional development of principals in participatory leadership.

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