Published Article

Abstract The study determined the relationship between principals’ effectiveness for quality assurance and perceived service quality of secondary school students in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The study formulated two specific objectives, two research questions and two null hypotheses for the research direction. It adopted a correlational research design. The target population was 56,587 secondary school II students. The stratified sampling technique was used to select subjects from 6 schools in the three senatorial districts of the State. The instrument developed by the researcher, titled “School Principals’ Effectiveness for Quality Assurance (SPPQA) and Students’ Perceived Service Quality Scale (SPSQS), with reliability coefficients between 0.88 and 0.91 on Cronbach’s Alpha was used for data collection. The Taro Yamen’s formula was employed to determine the sample of 397 respondents, randomly selected from the population, while 393 were suitable for data analyses. The data collected were subjected to Regression statistics, which the r-value was used to answer the research questions and fvalue was used to test the null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The results indicated very high negative significant relationships between predictors (quality collaborations and relationship skills of school principals) and perceived service quality of secondary school students (criterion) in the study area. The study concluded among others that Principals should adhere to quality collaborations and relationship skills with teachers and other schools members in order to attain quality assurance to ensure that the perceived service quality of students is realised. It was recommended that government should enforce on the principals to employ quality collaboration and relationship skills as administrative strategy for effective learning atmosphere towards achieving quality assurance in education and students’ satisfaction. Key words: principals’ effectiveness, quality assurance, collaborations, relationship skills, students’ perceived service quality