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M. E. TANYI The Student's Adjustment Inventory Manual
Educators have long realized that many students perform poorly in their academic work not because they do not possess the mental ability to do well but because they do not adapt (adjust) to the school norms and yet there is paucity of behavioral instrument to help these students. The term school adjustment according to this study relates directly to personality formation of a child at school. Personality also here refers to stable behaviors in the process of adjustment. Stable forms of adjustment or adaptations can be regarded as traits of personality. School adjustment therefore, is a behavioural pattern that enables a student to get along with his/her personal, academic, social and emotional demands of the school setting. Students that cannot meet or cope with the expected school demands or norms become maladjusted.
The Student's Adjustment Inventory (SAI) represents the results of 3 years of intensive research studies leading to a doctorate degree in educational psychology by the author and to the award of the Commonwealth Fellowship1999- 2000. SAI had gone through standardisation and cross-validation procedures to obtain 57 items with high reliability and validity correlation coefficients. SAI can identify, certify, discriminate and measure the area and level of defective behaviour exhibited by students in secondary schools.
G.GBADAMOSI A Behavioural Approach to Effective Management in Nigerian Banks: A Reflection on The Past.
Effective bank management is still very important and relevant in Nigerian business environment as it is in other African countries today as always. This paper is a descriptive assessment of the banking industry in Nigeria in the period when the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme was at its peak. Emphasis of this paper is, however, on the behavioural issues, that affect bank management. These issues include mismanagement, ownership structure and bank board related problems, frauds and forgeries, and also the greed and ignorance of depositors. The period covered was 1986-1993, while reforms in the banks commenced.
Specific suggestions were made on the way forward in the predicament of banking malpractices towards ensuring effective bank management in Nigeria. There are lessons to be learnt by other African countries. These include overhaul of the internal management of the banks, the role of regulatory authorities and lastly, what every manager needs to know in managing people and ensuring effectiveness in banks. The major conclusion of the paper rests on the need to rebuild or rekindle trust in the banking industry.
S.N. MADU Perceived Parental Disorders as Risk Factors for Child Sexual, Physical and Emotional Abuse among High School Students in the Northern Province, South Africa.
This is an investigation into the perceived parental disorders as risk factors for child sexual, physical and emotional abuse among high school students in the northern Province (South Africa).
Four hundred and fourteen secondary school students in standard 9 and 10 in 3 secondary schools filled in a retrospective self-rating questionnaire in a classroom setting. The questionnaire asked questions about perceived parental disorders, and childhood sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
Logistic Regression Analysis shows that among all the participants, `parent haven gone into a psychiatric hospital for psychiatric problems', `parent hitting or beating up another parent' and parent having problems with drugs or alcohol' are risk factors for child sexual, physical and emotional abuse respectively.
Mental health and social workers, educators and law enforcement agencies dealing with prevention and protection against child abuse in the province should take note of the above identified risk factors while designing programmes for the eradication of child sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
A. A. MOGAJI Job Involvement And Organizational Climate
This study was aimed at finding the relationship between job involvement and organizational climate. Data were collected from 600 subjects which include 150 junior workers (120 males and 30 females), 30 supervisors (27 males and 3 females) and 20 managers (18 males and 2 females) totalling 200 subjects from each of the three manufacturing industries in Lagos, Nigeria. Analysing the data with a Pearson's product-moment correlation statistics, estimates between the 9 measures of organizational climate and job involvement were shown. The results indicated that structure and responsibility had significantly positive relations with job involvement. Reward had a positive but non-significant relation with it. Warmth climate had a significantly negative relation while risk, support, standard of performance, conflict and identity all had negative but non-significant relations with job involvement. Analysing the data further, the hierarchical/multiple regression of sex, occupational level, type of industry, personal/demographic and organizational factors indicated that work satisfaction, age, type of industry and organizational climate variables like responsibility and warmth are the significant factors that can influence job involvement. Only felt-responsibility had a significantly positive influence on job involvement at p < .01. Analysing the data with One-way ANOVA showed that there are significant differences in the job involvement among the three categories of workers and the three industries at p<.01, df = 2/597, F = 4.62. However, the analysis of the results with t-statistics did not show any significant difference between male and female workers. The results have implications for determining the climate, which fosters job involvement among sex, occupational and organizational samples.
R. M. Schroeder The Cognitive Roles of Dysfunctional Attitudes And Automatic Thoughts In Depression: A Study Of African-American College Students
This study examined the diathesis- stress model of Beck's cognitive theory of depression. This model postulates that dysfunctional attitudes will interact with negative life events in the occurrence of depressive symptoms, while automatic thoughts will mediate the relationship between negative life events and the occurrence of depressive symptoms. The Beck Depression Inventory, the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, the Daily Hassles Scale, and the College Students Life Events Scale, were administered to 258 African- American students from a historically Black college in the Southeast of America. Data were analysed using multiple regression analyses. Results of the study revealed that automatic thoughts mediate in the relationship between negative life events and depression. However, dysfunctional attitudes did not mediate in the relationship between negative life events and the occurrence of depressive symptoms.
A. S. OBENG Women and Rural Poverty: A Case Study of Kwawu South District of Ghana
The purpose of this study was to identify the causes of poverty among rural women and seek recommendations from the respondents as to how poverty could be alleviated.
Several theoretical perspectives have been used to explain the existence of rural poverty. Among them are the individualistic theory, the physical ecology theory and the political economy theory. The theoretical perspective that was found to be suitable for the study was the political economy theory.
In conducting the study, a sample size of 220 was used. A multiple sample technique was adopted for selecting the sample size. Both primary data and secondary information were used. Interviews with the help of structured questionnaires and non-participant observation were used for the study.
The findings of the study, which included gender inequalities in terms of access to land, credit and education, supported the political economy theory, which attributed poverty to unequal distribution of wealth and power and the urban bias of the government, district assemblies, policy makers and local elites.
Based on the results of the study, it was recommended that to alleviate rural women's poverty, there should be a fairer system of distribution of wealth and power among the people and greater access of women to education
D.O. ADEBAYO, & O.M. ADEKOYA, Individual Differences in Boredom Proneness amongst Truck Drivers
This study is on the relationship between boredom at work and personal characteristics. A total of 60 Coca-Cola truck drivers in Ibadan-Nigeria constituted the sample of this study. Their average age was 38.45 years with ages ranging from 27 to 48 years. Using a survey research method, participants were required to complete questionnaires designed to measure variables of interest resulting in an ex-post-factor design (after the –fact) because of the non-manipulation of the variables. Two hypotheses were tested in the present study. Results of the simple regression model suggest that age, tenure on job, self-esteem and locus of control individually and jointly predicted boredom proneness amongst truck drivers. The same variables jointly accounted for 67% of the proportion of the variance in boredom proneness.
Results of the 2 x 2 x 2 ANOVA also revealed that younger, inner directed and high self-esteem individuals are significantly less bothered by repetitive work than their counterparts, who are older, externally oriented and who are lower in self-esteem.
The results are discussed in terms of possible implications for personnel selection and placement decisions.
K. Amaeshi Computer-Mediated Communication Technologies (CMCTs) and User's Job Satisfaction
This study investigated the effect of Computer –Mediated Communication Technologies (CMCTS) on user's Job Satisfaction. The Job Description Index (JDI) was used to measure participants' level of Job Satisfaction. A total of 300 participants (186 males, 114 females, 148 CMCTs users, 152 non-users, 141 senior staff and 159 junior staff) drawn from five (5) Organisations in Port Harcourt Nigeria, that use CMCTs were used in the study. The major instrument of data collection was the questionnaire. ANOVA statistics was used for the analysis of data. The study concluded that CMCTs usage has significant impact on Job Satisfaction (p<.001). This means that CMCTs user and non-users differ somewhat in their levels of Job Satisfaction – CMCTs users were more satisfied with their job than non-users. On the other hand the study found out that gender does not affect user's Job Satisfaction while job status has significant effect on Job Satisfaction – those with high job status were more satisfied with their job than those with low job status (p<.001). These results imply that organizations necessarily should, in their choice and implementation of CMCTs, seriously consider their impact on the individual worker.
J. F. EZE Information Technology (It) Imperative for Strategy Managers in the New Millennium
Management involves in the main, decision making under situations of uncertainty. The strategic dimension of management involves activities leading to the formulation of alternatives from which a particular option that suits the enterprise will be chosen (strategic objective), and which will affect the firm for several years ahead and implementing such, so as to realise the envisaged goal.
Accurate, relevant, up-to-date, timely information is a sine qua non for such an activity of management. The relevance of information technology (IT) to strategic management can be seen from the fact that rapid advance in micro-electronic technology has revolutionised many of the processes by which goods and services are made available to the customers. Consequently, the improvement in world-wide communication systems has given impetus to better and more timely information prior to decision making.
The main thrust of this paper is to present the objective criteria for managers in the 21st century to appreciate the benefits of visionary, purposeful, result-oriented management and the indispensability of IT in a world that has become a global village.
P. Deku Teacher Competency in Handling Children with Special Needs in the regularSchools In Ghana. A Study of Primary School Teachers in Hohoe District
In recent years the concept of effective teaching has become increasingly topical both in regular and special educational circles. As regular schools continue to open their doors to all children including children with disabilities, regular class teachers have had to become significantly more involved in providing an effective educational service for all students.
The purpose of this study therefore is to assess the competency level of regular teachers in handling children with special needs in the regular classrooms. A descriptive survey design was adopted. In all 236 teachers made up of 121 males and 115 females in the primary schools in the Hohoe district of Ghana were the subjects for the study.
A self-designed Teacher Competency Scale with split-half reliability coefficient of 0.88 was used. The data was analysed using Point-biserial correlation and the t-test.
The study showed that there is a significant positive relationship between preservice course in the education of children with special needs and teacher competence. However, no significant difference was found between male and female competency.
DEJO OLOWU Crime and Violence in Contemporary Nigeria: A Socio-Legal Therapy for Sustainable Democracy*
The global acceptance of democracy as the desirable system of modern governance is beyond disputation. Experience in world affairs has however shown that democracy cannot be sustained in any nation whose very existence is threatened by social instability, some of the determinant indices of which are crime and violence. Nigeria's nascent democratic life has continued to witness an upsurge in various criminal tendencies as well as violent activities across the land. Hardly a day passes in Nigeria without a media report of these tendencies and activities. This development has necessitated a critical evaluation of the efficacy or even the suitability of Nigerian criminal law to meet the challenges of this era. Attempts are made in this paper to diagnose the crisis of the Nigerian criminal justice system vis-à-vis the demands of social control. Effort is made to identify the fountains of crimes and violent upheavals in Nigeria while a pragmatic approach for the prevention and control of these vices is proffered towards meting the challenges of the present and future. The trajectories for overhauling the institutional and structural framework in these regards, for the enhancement of sustainable democracy in Nigeria in the new millennium, are critically discussed.
Simone Mayer Psychology in Nigeria: A View From Outside
First and foremost, this writer comments on the German and Nigerian Psychology. Then some reflections are made on the sociocultural and historical background of the two countries. It is important to do this because of their effects on the contents of empirical and theoretical topics. The differences between Nigerian and German psychology with regard to the contents are of interest. Finally after the critique of a lack of an indigenous African psychology, an attempt is made to discuss what can be called indigenous psychology in Nigeria.
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