Effect of Cognitive Restructuring Intervention on Emotional Adjustment of Sample Divorcees in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of Cognitive Restructuring Intervention on Emotional Adjustment of Divorcees in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria. The need for the study came as a result of increasing rate of divorce among married teachers in the study area to which the researchers sought to find solutions. It was guided by two research questions and two corresponding null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. The design of the study was quasi-experimental non-randomized control group, pretest-posttest design. The population of the study consisted of all 24 divorcees in public secondary schools in the study area identify by school counsellors. The entire population of 24 divorcees were used as sample. In this case, there was no sample. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire titled “Emotional Adjustment Divorcees Questionnaire (EADQ)” developed by the researchers and validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The internal consistency reliability of the instrument was obtained using cronbach alpha statistics which yielded the estimate of 0.84 for EADQ. This instrument was used to collect data from subjects as pretest before treatment programme which lasted for six weeks and were reshuffled by changing the serial numbers of the items and re-administered on the subjects on posttest after treatment. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to test the null hypotheses. The result of the study indicated that cognitive restructuring intervention had significant effect on emotional adjustment of divorcees. There was no significant difference in the mean rating on emotional adjustment of divorcees as moderated by gender. In the other words, male and female divorces exposed to treatment benefitted equally on the emotional adjustment. Based on the findings; it was recommended among others that guidance counsellors should employ cognitive restructuring intervention to help divorcees on emotional adjustment.