Influence of Child Abuse on the Social Adjustment of Pupils in Primary Schools
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
In specific terms, the objectives of the study are to:
- Investigate the relationship between child abuse and social adjustments of primary school pupils in Lagos State, Nigeria.
- Find out the relationship between child abuse and academic performances of primary school pupils in Lagos State, Nigeria.
- Find out the difference between academic performances of physically abused and psychologically abused primary school pupils in Lagos State, Nigeria.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Concept of Child Abuse
A review of the concept of child abuse is expected to give direction and shape to this work in the sense that previous researches showed what has been done, what has not been done and what needs attention now. But one thing that complicates the issue is that many abused people especially children, do not know that they are abused. One reason for this is the failure on the part of individuals and the public to agree upon a definite definition of child abuse. Also many mental or psychological health services providers focus on the diagnoses only without investigating the actual causes of abuse. Another likely reason is that the adaptive cognitive styles victims of abuse develop preclude awareness of abuse and refuse to make their case known for the fear of being stigmatized and cast out. According to Dill (1999) child abuse is a social phenomenon which cannot be precisely defined. He stated that it is appropriate to examine what is considered normal or abnormal behaviour as parents, teachers, psychologists and other adults who come in contact with children on regular basis often have different values, viewpoints and criteria for judging what is normal or abnormal. This means that the definition of child abuse largely depends on who gives the definition or evaluates the phenomenon. Although there are different types of abuses but the present study is only interested in physical and psychological forms of abuse.
Cohen (2013) argues that child abuse is closely related to the context of traditions as well as official and unofficial child rearing practices which differ from one state or culture to another. However, there exists a consensus on the acts that portray child abuse across cultures. Similarly, Febe (1994) stated that there is a general consensus among psychologists that human behaviour is dynamic in nature. This contributes in making the psychological discourse interesting in finding out the upsurge of behavioural problems among which is child abuse. He further states that lack of a consensual definition of child abuse has been described as problematic for the fact that, due to its nature, it is not easy to concentrate on all the aspects of the phenomenon. In addition, the problem lies in the frequency and extent of abuse, that is, how often and serious the abuse is. Moreover, the problem is ascribed to differences in cultures and child rearing practices in different societies. Though, many critics of child abuse have based their definitions on the intent, that is, whether the abuse is deliberate or accidental. Murkhjee (1978) stated that the definition of child abuse largely depends on the condition of the family to which the child belongs. If the parents of the victim are alcoholic or are known to have psychiatric problems, it can be assumed that they cannot adequately take care of the child. For this reason, such parents cannot be termed as abusers. Other definitions of child abuse, according to Gelles (2015), focus on the physical injuries inflicted on the child.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
This research adopted correlation design. It is a non- experimental design used to describe relationship between or among variables. A correlation research study is an opportunity to foretell results and explain the relationship among variables (Waters, 2011). In a correlation research, no attempt is made to control or manipulate the variables as in experimental design; however, the correlation statistic is used to describe and measure the degree of relationship between two or more variables or sets of scores (Davis, Gamble, Humphries, Mitchell, and Pendergrass,2011). Quantitative correlation study was appropriate because it involved the collection of data to determine whether, and to what degree, a relationship existed between two or more quantifiable variables (Gay, 1992).
Population of the Study
The population for this research is made up of all primary five pupils in the six selected public primary schools in Lagos State. The population was 8002 as obtained from Lagos State Ministry of Education (School Census Report 2012/2013).
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Bio Data of Respondents
The bio-data of subjects by location and the nature of abuse are presented in
Tables 4.1 and 4.2 respectively.
Distribution of type of on pupils.
Hypotheses Testing
Two hypothesis were tested which all showed negative relationship existed among child abuse, psychological abuse, social adjustment and academic performance of primary school pupils in Lagos state.
H01: That there is no significant relationship between child abuse and the academic performance of abused pupils.
A Pearson co-efficient r test was run to determine the strength of the relationship that exists between child abuse and academic performance of pupils. The statistical distribution is presented in Table 4.4
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary
This study was structured into five chapters in order to effectively carry out this research work. Chapter one presented the background and purpose and objectives of the study, the statement of the problem, six research questions, six hypotheses, basic assumptions as well as the scope and limitations of the study. The study is significant as it will provide Lagos state government and NGOs with adequate information on experts‟ views on how to curb the menace of physical and psychological forms of abuse among primary school pupils and provide quality service delivery to the physically and psychologically abused pupils for better academic performance and social adjustment. Chapter Two presented literatures related to this study under the conceptual framework, theories of child abuse, physical and psychological abuses as they affect academic performance and social adjustment of pupils.
In Chapter Three, the research methodology adopted was discussed. The target population for this research consisted of 21,469 Primary Five pupils of public schools in Lagos State. Six schools were selected and 377 abused respondents were used. Three (3) instruments, namely child abuse questionnaire, psychological abuse questionnaire and social adjustment questionnaire were used for the study. Pupils‟ examination results in English, Mathematics, Social Studies and Computer Science were derived from their third term examination results. Content and face validity of the instruments were assessed by lecturers in the Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling in Unilag, and corrections were made. The researcher proceeded to conduct a pilot study to test the reliability of the instrument using Cronbach alpha coefficient statistical technique. Procedures for data collection were administered and the data collected were analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS version19) in which Pearson Moment Correlation (PPMR) was used to analyse hypotheses One (1) to Four (4) and T- test was used to analyse hypotheses Five (5) and six (6). The number of pupils who had experienced different types of abuse was expressed in percentages and the P value enabled the researcher to reject or retain the formulated hypotheses. The interpretation of the significant value calculated by SPSS was done by comparing the value with alpha level (0.05) at which each of the hypothesis was tested.
The analysis, presentation and discussion of the result were carried out in chapter four. The SPSS version 20 statistical package was used to carry out the entire data analysis. It was discovered that child abuse had significant negative association with social adjustments and academic performance of primary school pupils in Lagos State. It was revealed that psychological abuse had significant negative relationship with social adjustment and academic performance of primary school pupils in Lagos State. The result also showed that psychologically abused pupils had lower social adjustment and poor academic performance than their physically abused counterparts. Finally, Chapter five presented the summary, conclusion and recommendations of the entire study.
Contributions to Knowledge
The study established that:
- Significant relationship existed between child abused and academic performance of abused pupils (P = 0.001),
- Significant relationship existed between psychological abused and social adjustment of abused pupils (P = 0.001),
Conclusions
Based on the above findings, the researcher concluded that physical and psychological forms of abuse have negative association with low social adjustment and poor academic performance among pupils, especially those attending public primary schools. In addition, the psychologically abused pupils are discovered to have lower social adjustment and poorer academic performance than their physically abused counterparts.
Recommendations
Based on the outcome of the study, the researcher recommended that:
- Psychologists, counselors, teachers and parents should be sensitized through workshops on how to prevent low social adjustment among physically abused pupils and to develop maladaptive coping strategies and techniques to remedy the menace that showed as child abused increases, the social adjustment of pupils decreases.
- Psychologists, counselors, teachers and parents should give proper educational support and counselling supervision to physically abused pupils. They should be made to understand that as child abuse increases pupils academic performance decreases and vice versa. This can be achieved by increase in funding of educational inspectorate departments.
- Psychologists, counselors and teachers should be given special allowance to provide psychological support services and conducive learning environment to psychologically abused pupils. They should be made to understand that increase in psychological abuse leads to decrease in the social adjustment of pupils.
- Psychologists, counselors, teachers and parents should provide academic and social skills enhancement training in schools for psychologically abused pupils. They should understand that when psychological abuse increases, the academic performance of pupils decreases.
- Significant difference existed between social adjustment of physically abused and psychologically abused pupils with mean difference of 1.98. The physically abused have better social adjustment.
- Significant difference existed between academic performance of physically abused and psychologically abused pupils with mean difference of 0.60. The physically abused performed better.
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