Causes of oppositional defiant disorders among the secondary school students in Turkana West Sub County

Abstract

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is multiplicity of dysfunctional behaviours exhibited by students who are not conforming to the societal norms, morals and code of ethics. Oppositional Defiant Disorders among secondary school students has remained a global concern that requires urgent intervention especially in the twenty first century. The causes and detrimental effects have remained elusive for parents, teachers and other stakeholders working with educational sector. It has therefore, remained a great challenge as education partners continue to work hard to determine the causes not only regionally, nationally but also locally as in the case for Turkana West Sub County. This study was conducted with an aim to determine the causes of ODD among the secondary school students. The study was supported by instinct theory of aggression that explains the sources of students’ oppositional defiant behaviours, which originate from Eros and Thanatos. The study target population was 1800 secondary school principals, guidance and counselling teachers of the sampled schools, parents and secondary school students, MoEST and child protection officers. The sample size of 328 was arrived at using Yamane Taro formulae. Simple random, convenience and purposive sampling were used to select the respondents in the study. The data was collected using the questionnaire and interviews among other tools of qualitative data collection. Collected data was descriptively analyzed using SPSS (version 21). The findings of the study revealed that poor caring environment, poor socio-economic background, poor relation between students and teachers, peer pressure, parental ignorance was the leading ODD cause. The study recommends that there is need to establish guidance and counselling sections in schools while empowering teachers. Education stakeholders to establish Conducive environmental systems (bio-ecological model) in which individuals work towards ODD management and positive academic performance through reinforcing positive students behaviours in schools.