EFFECT OF COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING TECHNIQUE ON BULLYING BEHAVIOUR OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Bullying behaviour among students has become a serious social problem in secondary schools. It is an ugly development that has given much concern to parents, teachers, counsellors, and stakeholders in the education industry. This study examined the effect of the cognitive restructuring technique on bullying behaviour of secondary school students in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study, while two null hypotheses were tested at a .05 level of significance. The study adopted a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent pre-test and post-test, control group design. The study population was 586 which comprised 354 males and 232 females SSII student bullies in the 47 co-educational public secondary schools in Awka Education Zone. A sample of 94 student bullies made up 54 males and 40 females were purposively drawn from three schools with the highest number of bullies and used for the study.  Two schools were as experimental groups for cognitive restructuring and assertiveness training while the remaining one was for the control group. Students Bullying Behaviour Identification Scale (SBBIS) and Students Bullying Behaviour Questionnaire (SBBQ) were adapted as instruments for data collection. The instruments were subjected to face and content validation. The reliability of the instruments was established using Cronbach Alpha and with coefficients of 0.88 for SBBQ and 0.96 for SBBIS. SBBIS was administered two weeks before the commencement of the treatment aimed at identifying and screening bullies while SBBQ was used for the pretesting and post-testing for the three groups. Mean was used to answer research questions, while the null hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Co-Variance (ANCOVA). The findings of the study revealed that the Cognitive Restructuring technique was effective in reducing bullying behaviours of secondary school students. The findings equally indicated that the difference in the effectiveness of the Cognitive Restructuring technique on bullying behaviours of male and female secondary school students was not significant. Based on the findings of the study it was recommended among others that guidance counsellors through school authorities should plan programme of intervention based on principles of cognitive restructuring technique for more enlightenment for students on bullying behaviour. Article visualizations: