ABSTRACT
This study investigated the effects of behavioural and rational emotive behaviour therapies on secondary school students’ tendencies to engage in examination malpractices. Six research questions raised and six null hypotheses formulated and tested. The design of the study was quasi-experimental, specifically the non-equivalent control group design. The balloting method of random sampling was used to compose six schools used for this study while the non-proportionate sampling technique was used to select the 591 SS 3 students that consisted the sample. A 36-item Tendencies to Engage in Examination Malpractice Questionnaire and two interventions Behavioural Therapy (BT) and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) programmes were developed, validated, and used for the study. A pre-test was administered to all the three groups using the Tendencies to Engage in Examination Malpractice Questionnaire. One of the experimental groups was exposed to behavioural therapy while the other experimental group was exposed to rational emotive behaviour therapy. The treatments lasted for 5 weeks. At the end of the 5 week session, a post-test was administered to all the three groups, namely, behavioural, rational and the control groups. The data obtained from the administration of the instrument were organized and analyzed using Mean scores and Standard Deviation for the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used in data analysis and subsequently the null hypotheses at significance level of 0.05. Major findings of the study included: a significant difference between students who were exposed to behavioural therapy from those not expose to the treatment on their tendencies to engage in examination malpractice; a significant difference between students who were exposed to rational emotive behaviour therapy from those not exposed to the treatment on their tendencies to engage in examination malpractice; Gender is not a significant factor on students’ tendencies to engage in examination malpractice; Location is a significant factor on students’ tendencies to engage in examination malpractice. The findings suggest among other things urgent need for the Government to deploy qualified guidance counsellors to all the secondary schools in the state; for intervention programmes to be organized regularly in the secondary schools and for Government to embark on regular monitoring/supervision of schools.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Examination malpractice is one of the school related problems that has drawn the attention of successive Governments in Nigeria. It has assumed a widespread and alarming rate over the past two decades in Nigeria. It is practiced at all levels of the education sector. This could be attributed to the total neglect of guidance and counselling services in the school system especially at the secondary school level. The importance of guidance and counselling in the present dispensation where everything is moving at a jet speed and where there is total disregard for societal norms can not be over emphasized. Despite the importance attached to this essential service as enunciated by the Federal Government of Nigeria (2004) in its National Policy on Education, most schools have no school counsellors. Even where they have, the counsellors are not given their rightful place. Most principals see them as rivals rather than as co-workers and colleagues. They refuse to approve any counselling programme such as counselling services that the counsellor wants to introduce. The utter neglect of guidance and counselling services in the secondary schools has led to a lot of vices such as students’ unrest, indiscipline, cultism and examination malpractice which has bedeviled the education system. It is the contention of some scholars like Obagah and Wokocha (1999) that these vices mentioned above would not have risen to the level they have reached if there were good counseling programmes in the various schools. One of these vices that have reached an advanced stage in the society and which has become a thing of concern for all meaningful citizens of this great country is examination malpractice..
According to Michael (2001), citing the Encyclopedia Britannica examination is:
The assessment of a person’s performance when confronted with a series of questions, problems or task set for him in order to ascertain the amount of knowledge that he has acquired, extent to which he is able to utilize it or the quality and effectiveness of the skills he had developed.(p.314)
According to Stanley & Hopkins cited in Benson (2004) there was an elaborate system of Civil Service examinations in China several centuries before Christ to select and recruit staff into its civil service. According to him oral questioning dates back to the beginnings of human language. Also, that the Socratic method of instruction involves the skillful interspersing of instruction with oral testing. They further stated that the first form of examination in formalized school setting was oral recitation or disputation. It was used by the greater Universities of Medieval Europe, whereby the students were examined at the end of their courses by means of debate. By the year 120 A.D., the University of Bologna, used this method to examine their doctoral students while in 599 A.D, the Jesuits had introduced written examination into their school system with well formulated rules and regulations governing its conduct.
Examination is one of the important instruments that every teacher uses to determine the rate and the extent to which the learner has achieved the desired instructional objectives, (Inemodi, 1995). Besides, it is used to measure the effectiveness of teaching strategies. Consequently, examination is used to determine whether a learner is ready for the next stage in an academic programme. The information it provides serves as a basis for the award of certificates as well as selection for specific jobs or assignments. Examination today is part and parcel of the school system. Its basic role includes the following: generating psychometric properties, for certification, prediction, motivation and research purposes. It is the desire of every examinee to pass his or her examination but good performance must be based on honesty and in conformity with the rules and regulations of such examination. Anything to the contrary violates or negates the credibility, validity and the reliability of the examination (Inemodi, 1995). Unfortunately, the average Nigerian student today is so desperate to pass his/her examination that the rules and regulation governing such examinations are never adhered to, giving room to the issue of examination malpractice which is common in the school system today.
Examination malpractice has made it difficult to carry out effective career counselling. This is as a result of the fact that the individual student’s result that could have served, as a guide for proper career counselling is not reliable. Examination malpractice has distorted the test and item qualities and a person’s scores and has rendered such scores meaningless in absolute or relative sense. Since inference about an examinee’s ability according to Nenty (1988) in a given subject area is made based on his/her performance on a number of items sampled to represent that area, examination malpractice makes such inference invalid. Besides, examination malpractice has led to cancellation of results, withholding of candidates’ results, expulsion from school, revocation of certificate and results, de-recognition of centres, termination of appointment or dismissal from service etc. It has also led to mass production of half-baked students who in turn have become nuisance in the society.
Beregha (1988) pointed out that examination malpractice has lowered the predictive validity of the product of education in Nigeria in general and Bayelsa State in particular. It has also reduced the faith of the society on examination as that which provides a guarantee of competence on those examined, to perform task demanded of them by professions or jobs, which they eventually take up after school. Furthermore, it has maimed the ability of the society to identify and develop the potential of most youths in Nigeria. It has equally brought untold hardship and frustration to parents and honest students. Most importantly, it has affected in no small extent, the attitude of students to study and even among the honest ones, it has eroded students’ confidence in and dependence on hard work as a means to success.
