Effect of Individual and Group Counselling on Secondary School Students’ Truant Behaviour in Abia State

Abstract

The study investigated the effects of individual and group counselling on secondary school students’ truant behaviour in Abia State. Three (3) research questions and three (3) hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study consisted of 875 senior secondary school two (SS2) students in the 2009/20010 academic session. A sample of 80 SS 2 students were drawn from the secondary schools. A simple random technique was used in drawing the sample. A questionnaire coded Truant Habit Scale (THS) was developed by the researcher and used for the collection of data. The Truant Habit Scale (THS) was validated by the experts and two other experts in Measurement and Evaluation. The reliability of the instrument was determined using test retest method and the correlation coefficient score of 0.87 was obtained. The research questions were answered with mean and standard deviation while the null hypotheses were tested with t-test and ANOVA at 0.05 level of significance. The researcher found out that there is no significant difference in the effects of individual and group counselling on male and female students with truant behaviours; the effects of individual and group counselling on students’ truant behaviour do not differ significantly based on gender. It was also found out that the effects of individual and group counselling on truancy among male and female adolescents differ significantly. Based on the findings, it was recommended that both individual and group counselling be adopted by counsellors in treating students with truant habits, although, the counsellors in Girls’ Schools should use more of individual counselling while those in Boys’ schools should use more of group counselling.