SELF-REGULATION TRAINING AND RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY ON SELF-DEFEATING BEHAVIOUR AMONG ACADEMIC UNDERACHIEVING SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ABEOKUTA, OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Self-defeating Behaviour (SdB) is a behavioural pattern that is motivated by uncontrollable poor outcomes such as failing important task despite best intention. Some secondary school students particularly in Abeokuta exhibit SdB, which partly accounts for their academic underachievement. Previous studies largely focused on the causes of underachievement and SdB with little attention paid to interventions for correcting such behaviour. This study, therefore, was designed to determine the effects of Self-regulation Training (SrT) and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) on SdB among academic underachieving secondary school students in Abeokuta. The moderating effects of gender and locus of control (LOC) were also examined. The study was anchored to Behaviour Theory, while the pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design with a 3x2x2 factorial matrix was adopted. The Multistage sampling procedure was used. Three Local Government Areas (LGAs) were randomly selected in Ogun State. Simple random sampling technique was used to select one public secondary school from each of the LGAs. Thirty senior secondary school II students with consistent previous records of low grades and who scored below the bench mark of 40% in English and Mathematics achievement tests and had scores above the threshold of 2.50 on the Self-defeating screening tool were purposively selected from each school. The participants were randomly assigned to SrT (30), REBT (30) and the control (30) groups. The instruments used were Self-defeating Belief Questionnaire (α = 0.91) for screening, Self-defeating Behaviour (α = 0.87), Rotter’s LOC (α = 0.83) scales and instructional guides. The Treatment lasted eight weeks. Data were analysed using Analysis of covariance and Duncan post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance. Majority of the participants were females (65.6%), and had external LOC (60.0%). There was a significant main effect of treatments on SdB among the academic underachieving students (F(2; 88) = 191.90, partial η2 = 0.83). The participants in the SrT improved better ( = 37.10) than their counterparts in the REBT ( =41.40) and the control ( = 61.20) groups. There was a significant main effect of gender on SdB (F(1; 88) = 4.77, partial η2 = 0.05) in favour of female participants ( = 45.54). The two-way interaction effects of treatment and LOC; treatment and gender and gender and LOC` were not significant on SdB of the participants. However, there was a significant three-way interaction effect of treatment, LOC and gender on SdB among the academic underachieving students (F(2; 88) = 3.30, partial η2 = 0.08). Self-regulation training and rational emotive behaviour therapy reduced self-defeating behaviour among academic underachieving secondary school students in Abeokuta, Ogun State Nigeria. Counselling and educational psychologists should adopt these strategies to reduce self-defeating behaviour among underachieving secondary school students.