EFFECT OF BEHAVIOURAL COUNSELLING APPROACH ON BULLYING BEHAVIOUR AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ANAMBRA STATE.

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of behavioural counselling approach on bullying behaviour among secondary school students in Onitsha Education Zone, Anambra State. The main purpose of this study examined the effect of behavioural counselling approach on bullying behaviour of secondary school students in Onitsha education zone, Anambra State. Two research questions and two null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test research design. The population of the study comprised 180 senior secondary two (SS2) student bullies in co-educational secondary school in Onitsha Education zone. A sample of 36 student bullies made up 20 males and 16 females were purposively drawn from the population of the study. The instrument for data collection was Students Bullying Behaviour Questionnaire (SBBQ) were adapted as instruments for data collection. The instrument was face validated by three experts in Guidance and Counseling. The reliability of the instruments was established using Cronbach Alpha. The computation yielded co-efficient value of 0.78. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer research questions, while the null hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Co-Variance (ANCOVA). The findings of the study showed that students exposed to Behavioural Counselling Approach had a significant reduction in bullying behaviour compared to those exposed to conventional counselling. The findings equally indicated that the behavioural counselling approach reduced the bullying behaviour of both male and female students compared to the conventional counselling approach. Based on the findings of the study it was recommended that Behavioural Counselling Approach should be used by guidance counsellors working in secondary schools to modify behaviours of students with bullying behaviour. The management of secondary school should regularly organize in service education programme such as conference, workshop, and seminars to educate the participants on the consequences and dangers of maladaptive behaviour such as Bullying.