ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to establish influence of post-traumatic stress disorder on students‟ academic achievement. The following objectives guided the study; to establish the influence of post-traumatic stress disorder on the students‟ academics, contribution of home- based psychosocial issues and impact of school based psychosocial issues on academic achievement and the interventional measures that would address the post-traumatic stress disorder in public secondary schools. The research questions and null hypothesis were drawn from the objectives of the study. The target population included 187 principals, 26350 form 3 students, and 187 Guidance and Counseling masters. The study adopted stratified sampling techniques to choose schools, simple random sampling to select 30% of the principals and guidance and counseling tutors. A total of 56 principals, and 56 G/C tutors were included. The researcher used form three students who were 379 students. Questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and focus group discussions were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data from the participants. Quantitative data was analyzed by both descriptive statistics presented in graphs, tables and charts and inferential statistics specifically ANOVA, Pearson Correlation and regression analysis were used to determine the influence/ relationships between independent and dependent variables. Each psychological issue was regressed to evaluate collective influence on student performance and a coefficient of 14.9% was observed. ANOVA output showed post-traumatic stress disorder as a significant predictor to students academic achievement F (3,323) =18.784, P=.000 <.05; R= .149 thus variation in the level of post-traumatic stress disorder explains 15% of the variability in academic achievement, home based issues accounted for 24.3% of the variation in the students‟ academic achievement. Lastly regression analysis showed school based psychosocial issues accounts for about 17% of the variability in academic achievement. The study findings may help the Ministry of Education and school managements, Nigeria Institute of Curriculum Development to focus more on psychosocial issues in the secondary schools in Biu Local Government Area. It may also help in further research by enabling other researchers to conduct a similar in other areas to come up with strategies and mechanisms geared towards filling counseling gaps and to strengthen the provision of psychosocial support programs in the learning institutions.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Human beings undergo a lot of processes in their lives where they need a lot of cognition and interactions with the entire environment. The mind coordinates a number of activities which should be balanced for a healthy psychological, emotional and social development. Psychosocial issues are factors relating to the combination of psychological and social domains that influence mental, health and social aspects of an individual. They include among others; peer pressure, parental support, cultural and socioeconomic status and interpersonal relationships that all help to shape personality and influence to psychological makeup (Webster‟s New World College Dictionary, 2014). Psychosocial support is the process of meeting a person‟s emotional, social, mental and spiritual needs and thus are essential elements of positive human development.
In some parts of the world for example in Nepal, mental health receives little attention and out of the 3% of the budget allocation to health only 1% is spent on mental health approximately. Traditional and religious healing methods are commonly practiced and there is no mental health act and the National Mental Health policy formulated is yet to become fully operational. The statistics cited by Regmi, et al. (2004) illustrate that psychosocial counseling provided and psychiatric services are largely meager and have started to get increasing attention. In the schools, details of the training program have been published elsewhere as asserted by Jordan‟s (2003) who recommends crisis intervention and task oriented counselling in schools and principles of group counselling that bring about behavioral and structural change which ought to be adopted by the learning institutions.
Globally, ten percent of adolescents who are majorly in secondary schools, meet at least one behavioral challenge and these could be mental disorders that probably begin before the age of 14 years (WHO, 2001). Studies conducted in Canada and USA by Polaha, Dalton and Allen (2011) show that mental health among the secondary school students is a public health issue and that the adolescents form the greatest population. It was also observed that in developing countries such as Nepal and other South-Asian countries, a scenario of mental health and its care system is worse than developed countries. Most of the adolescents‟ students are neglected and Arumugam, Rajendran and Nagaligam (2013) observed that adolescents are believed to have mental problems but little attention is given to this menace.
Muzammil, Kishore and Semwal (2009) in their study of prevalence of psychosocial problems among adolescents reported that psychosocial issues are prevalent in adolescents where they experience varied biological and emotional developmental changes. It is indeed a time of stress and storm since they experience a lot of changes during growth resulting to conflicts which finally impair their normal psychosocial development. There is need for emotional support and this is a resource that the immediate environment which is the family should be able to provide regardless of family structure and financial status. The world Health Organization expert committee observed that mental health is influenced by both biological and social factors. The biological factors include some key points in the life cycle of human beings in the view of mental health like prenatal period across to the adolescent stage of development. Out of all these the adolescence stage is most crucial and this transition is often stormy and fraught. The social and environmental factors associated with mental health at this age comprise emotional sress, frustration, broken homes, poverty, industrialization, urbanization, changing family structure, rejection and neglect.
Lack of attention to the mental challenges of students and adolescents during their key phase of socialization may result to their mental health consequences that may be experienced throughout life and potentially reduce their capacity towards societal socio- economic productivity (WHO, 2001). Moreover, it can be concluded that proper psychosocial development of adolescents at the ages of 14 to 16 years in secondary schools could be seen in their sound progressive academic achievement. NICE (2010) observes that the students physical, social, emotional, cognitive and psychological health could be fruitful to the quality of life to an individual should there be detection of psychological dysfunctions in the early adolescence life. South Africa Institute of Race Relations (2008) reported that South African public schools are the most dangerous in the world. Although the majority of the media based schools focus on the extreme cases of violence, crime and other less prominent, problems are still evident within the school system.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
There is general fact in the cases of increase in failure of students in examinations, violence, school conflicts, addiction, misguided career choices, disciplinary problems, and myriad of issues in the Nigerian Schools. Although this state could be attributed to various causes, guidance and counseling services have been offered in the secondary schools in Biu Local Government Area for the last twenty (20) years with the main aim of helping the students to cope up to the desired educational goals and standards, but students have continually failed in examinations, tests, hence making the principals and education stakeholders to come up with other strategies. The strategies which have included motivation of teachers to avail themselves for students, open forums, provision of learning and teaching materials (instructional materials), punishments, peer counseling programs and excursions seem not to have produced desired results as students still fail in examinations. Bala and Shaafu (2014) postulate that students experience multiple post-traumatic stress disorder that might lead to low academic achievement if not detected at the early stages of their developments. The researchers asserted that anxiety, fear and phobias could easily lead to a psychological disorientation thus leading to poor academic advancement.
Previous studies by Wambu (2011) confirmed that there is decline in quality of education in schools due to multiple problems and challenges such as strikes, poor syllabus coverage, lack of communication and violent destructions of properties that need to be resolved if the academic standards have to be improved. A task force that was formed and Chaired by Director of Education to investigate on the causes of violence found out that the causes of unrest include, poor communication between the Ministry and school, poor school management, inadequate facilities, overloaded curriculum, lack of co-curriculum activities, drug abuse, poor parenting and political influences. However, this task force did not address the perceived psychosocial component that might be the causes of the students‟ failure in academic achievement.
Scholars and researchers in this State have conducted studies with different approaches to unearth student challenges in the learning institutions especially in academic excellence. Omollo and Simatwa (2022) revealed that some students in certain learning institutions performed well in their final exams due to motivation obtained from the leadership skills of their principals. According to Adhanja, Nyakan and Yambo (2016), family based socio-economic factors were found to have affected students‟ academic achievement in public secondary schools in Rongo Sub State, Borno state, Nigeria. There is little empirical evidence that psychosocial issues that affect students‟ academic progress have been examined in secondary school students in Borno state.
A lot of psychosocial constructs influence students‟ academic achievement in different institutions of learning when most of the administrators seem not to have concern over these issues. Beharu (2022) however observes that the academic achievement of students is affected either by social, psychological, economic, environmental and personal factors in which the factors have a powerful influence on academic achievement of students as positive or negative, but they vary from one society to another. Conclusively, the fact that there were minimal research conducted by scholars in the area of psychosocial issues and influence on students‟ academics especially in this state motivated thiss study. The researcher therefore tried to bridge the gap by conducting a study to investigate on the influence of psychosocial issues on the academic achievement of the students in the public secondary schools within Borno state.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The main focus of the study was to establish the influence of post-traumatic stress disorder on the students‟ academic achievement in public secondary schools within Borno state- Nigeria.
1.4 Objectives of the Study
The following objectives guided this study:
1. To establish the influence of post-traumatic stress disorder on the academic achievement of secondary school students in Borno state.
2. To find out the influence of school based psychosocial issues on students‟ academic achievement.
3. To identify the interventional measures that will address the psychosocial issues in public secondary schools in Biu Local Government Area.
1.5 Research Questions
This study was aided by research questions which were formulated from the objectives of the study. The questions are outlined below;
1. What is the influence of psychological issues on student academic achievement?
2. What is the influence of school environment on students‟ academic achievement?
3. Which are the interventional measures that would be used to address the psychosocial issues in public secondary schools in Biu Local Government Area?
1.6. Hypotheses of the Study
The researcher used the following null hypotheses to guide the study;
Ho1: There exists no statistically significant influence of selected post-traumatic stress disorder on students‟ academic achievement in the public secondary schools in Biu Local Government Area.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The study focused on the influence of post-traumatic stress disorder on students‟ academic achievement in the public secondary schools in Biu Local Government Area.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
In the study 52 (13.7%) students who were the main respondents in the study did not dully fill in the qualitative sections of the questionnaire. This implied that some information was not captured in the study. However, since the percentage (13.7%) was low, the findings were not significantly affected and therefore the analysis procceded.The instruments were also originally ambiguous and not focused to the study environment. Moreover the instruments were adopted but with the piloting that was conducted and the assistance of the experts from Biu Local Government Area the instruments became clear, focused and precise.
1.9 Significance of the Study
The study is useful to professional counselors and other stake holders by providing ideas to help improve their counseling skills. The study could also assist principals of secondary schools in reformulating policies and regulations in schools concerning counseling services among schools. The study may be of help to teachers, and students to identify more gaps concerning psychosocial problems among themselves. With the current trends of strikes in schools, school drop outs, early pregnancies amongst the female students, The Ministry of Education could also benefit as the findings unveil pertinent issues affecting students and so there is dire need for more manpower to be trained by The Ministry to address the challenges in the learning institutions. It may also add more information to the already existing database on psychosocial issues of students to enhance efforts in combating the challenge of psychosocial instability of students in Nigeria secondary schools.
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