Sexting in educational sector: gender perspective in some selected secondary schools in Ekiti and Osun states

Abstract

This empirical study focused on the use of mobile phone for sexting in the educational sector in selected secondary schools in Osun and Ekiti States. The study do a comparative investigation of gender and some important variables in the study to enable us see which sex actually feel the impact of sexting mostly. To this end, two secondary schools were purposively selected in both Osun and Ekiti states. A total of 350 respondents were selected for this study using grab sampling technique. The respondents cut across JS I – SS III in all the schools. Structured questionnaire method was used to elicit information for this study. Findings showed that 68.9% and 61.3% respondents that falls within 14-17 years of age were female and male respectively, 52.3% and 47.7% of the respondents that were single female and male respectively, only 14 male were fully married while 66.7% and 33.3% were either divorce or separated were female and male correspondingly. It is noteworthy that 12.7% of male secondary school students practiced traditional religion. About 83.8% male students have just one phone while 16.9% of female students have two phones, 30.9% female students have been using phone and 27.4% of female respondents have use phone for more than 8 years, 16.8% of male respondents got their phone from opposite sex as gift and 26.0% of them purchase their phone by themselves. Both male and female respondents strongly disagree with all the indices measuring issues of sexting among them with a grand mean of 2.6 and 2.5 respectively. Finally, the result of measuring the effect of sexting on academic performance showed that the respondents were totally strongly disagree and undecided with all the indicators with a grand mean of 2.2 which is strongly disagree.

Keywords: Sexting, mobile phone, academic performance, male and female.