EFFECT OF CLIENT-CENTRED THERAPY ON EXAM MALPRACTICE OF EXAM MALPRACTICE AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN JALINGO EDUCATION ZONE TARABA STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the effect of Client-centered counselling therapies on exam malpractices of  secondary school students in Jalingo Education Zone Taraba State, Nigeria. Two specific objectives to guide the study with corresponding research questions and two null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 significance level. The study adopted quasi-experimental research design. The population was 2,283 SS2 students. The sample of the study comprises 60 SSII ( male and female ) students drawn from the public secondary schools in Jalingo Education Zone Taraba State, Nigeria who exhibited examination malpractice. Exam malpractice Inventory Questionnaire( BMIQ ) made up of 20 items were used for data collection for the study. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient was used to determine the reliability of the instrument and a reliability coefficient of 0.82 was obtained. Both the face and content validity of the research instrument were ensured with the help of experts from three departments such as Science education, Educational foundations and Counselling Educational psychology and Human Development, Faculty of Education Taraba State University, Jalingo. The two research questions were  answered using mean and standard deviation, while t-test (paired samples and independent samples) was used to test the two research hypotheses. According to the data collected and analyzed the following findings revealed that: there was significant effect of Client-centered therapy on examination malpractice among secondary school students in Jalingo Education Zone Taraba State, Nigeria. There was no significant difference in the mean effect of Client-centered therapy on examination malpractice  between male and female secondary school students in Jalingo Education Zone Taraba State, Nigeria. It was concluded that Client-Centered therapy had significantly reduced  examination malpractice behaviour of secondary school students in Jalingo Education Zone Taraba State, Nigeria. The Client Centered therapy is gender friendly. The study recommended among others that school counsellors, teachers, psychologists should be encouraged to learn the make proper use of Client-Centered therapy for an effective way of reducing any form of exam malpractice problem among students.