Social Variables and Maladaptive Behaviours among Secondary School Students in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined Social variables and Maladaptive behaviour of public senior secondary school students in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria Three research questions were formulated and three hypotheses were stated in their null form and tested with appropriate statistics at a .05 level of significance. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 54,216 senior secondary two (SS2) students in all 235 public secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Nwana’s sampling formula was used to select 20% of students from nineteen (9) public secondary schools. The researcher made use of a questionnaire entitled (FVSDBTQ) to obtain data from respondents. The instrument was validated by experts in the sociology of Education and Measurement and Evaluation from the Department of Educational Foundations, Guidance and Counseling, University of Uyo, Uyo. Cronbach Apha analysis for internal consistency reliability of the instrument yielded a coefficient of .96. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using independent t-test and ANOVA. The study revealed that social variables differ in terms of the maladaptive behaviour of secondary school students in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The independent t-test and ANOVA of the hypotheses indicated significant differences in students’ maladaptive behaviour based on family discipline, family emotional climate and parent-child relationship. It was, therefore, concluded that social variables differ significantly based on students’ maladaptive behaviour in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The researcher made some useful recommendations which include: parents should also take the discipline of their children seriously; parents should show a good example for their children to emulate and parents should also develop a healthy relationship with their children to help them develop good moral behaviour among other recommendations.