Nurturing Positive Behaviour at School age: a Study of Tardiness in a Nigerian Federal Unity College

Abstract

Ingraining the appropriate ethical behaviour among secondary school age is good practice and a precursor to appropriate organizational culture in the wider society. Unfortunately, pervasive tardiness is gradually becoming an acceptable behavioural blight in society. This study examined the impact of Positive Behaviour Intervention Strategy (PBIS) on tardy day students in Federal Government College Kaduna. Study adopted the multiple baseline single case experimental design. A research question was asked and answered. In addition, two (2) hypotheses were formulated and tested. The population of the study comprised a total of (N=782) day school students; consisting (N=402) Junior Secondary School JSS (I) & JSS (II) and (N=380) Senior Secondary School SSS (I) & SSS (II) students. The JSS3 and SSS3 students were not included since they were writing the Basic Education Certificate (BECE) and Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) respectively. The t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance and descriptive statistics to answer the research question. The key finding of the study revealed that the PBIS contributed to minimise tardiness among the tardy students of Federal Government College Kaduna. To enable students benefit maximally from school work, reverse the inverse impact of tardiness on school climate and set the stage for organizational climate for the future, it was recommended that college management and teachers should adopt the PBIS and accordingly, deploy desirable reinforcement strategies in addition to a combination of ratio and interval reinforcement schedules.

Keywords: Tardiness; Positive Behaviour; Nurturing; School Age