INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT ON ATTITUDE TOWARDS SCHOOLING AND SCHOOL ADJUSTMENT AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

(A CASE STUDY OF BENUE STATE, NIGERIA)

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Author

Presented To

Department of Education

ABSTRACT
This study investigated the influence of social environment on attitude towards schooling and school adjustment among secondary school students in Benue State, Nigeria.The social environment in the cause of this study included some of the elements with which the child interacts, which includes the family, neighbors, peer groups and the school system. The study adopted Correlational Design; the targeted population of the study was 7,500 students from junior secondary schools in Benue state. Simple Random Sampling was used to select 3 secondary schools, one from each of the 3 educational zones in Benue state. The sample of the study was 322 respondents drawn from the three secondary schools. Data was collected using social environment inventory (SEI), School Adjustment Questionnaire (SAQ) and Attitude towards Schooling Inventory (ATSI). The collected data was processed and analyzed using descriptive statistics (Frequencies, Mean and Standard Deviation) and inferential statistics (Pearson Product Moment Correlation). All tests were done at a 0.05 level of significance. The finding shows that social environment positively influenced both students’ attitude towards schooling and adjustment with the following values; Home Environment on attitude towards schooling r= .028, p=.001, Home environment on school adjustment r=.370 p=.000, Neighborhood environment on students’ attitude r=.145 p=.020, Neighborhood environment on school adjustment r=.194 p=.003, Peer group on students’ attitude r=.134 p=.026, Peer group on school adjustment r=.125 p=.009, School environment on students’ attitude r=.232 p=.000 and School environment on school adjustment r=.017 p=.009.From the results of the findings, it is recommended that social environment should be made secure and conducive for the child in order to foster positive attitude to school and adjust when necessary.