This study examined the effect of assertiveness training on social withdrawal among adolescents in secondary schools in Owerri Municipal of Imo State. A quasi-experimental design with a pre-test, post-test and control group method was adopted for this study. Two research questions were used, and two null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The population of this study comprised 2892 (1638 males and 1254 females) SS2 students from 10 public secondary schools in Owerri Municipal council of Imo State, Nigeria. The sample for the study was 32 social withdrawal students who were selected through purposive sampling technique. Two instruments were used for data collection, namely; student’s social withdrawal identification scales (SSWIS) and student’s social withdrawal tendency scales (SSWTS). The items in the instruments were validated by experts in measurement and evaluation as well as Guidance and Counseling, and the reliability of the research instruments were established using Cronbach alpha statistic with indices of 0.81 and 0.83 respectively. Data collected from the study were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to test the null hypothesis. The results obtained from the study showed that assertiveness training was effective in reducing social withdrawal behaviour among adolescents at post test. The results equally indicated that assertiveness training technique was significant. Moreso, the results of the study showed that the effect of assertiveness training was slightly more effective on male students then the female students, but the difference in the effectiveness was not significant based on gender. The researcher recommended among others, that counselors and other therapists should adopt assertiveness therapy as an effective counseling technique in controlling social withdrawal among adolescents in secondary schools so as to enhance their social and academic performances. Article visualizations:
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