ABSTRACT
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The study investigated the effects of cognitive restructuring and bibliotherapy counselling techniques on study habits and proneness to examination malpractice of secondary school students in Nsukka education zone of Enugu State. The need for this study came as a result of the increasing rate of examination malpractice and poor study habits among students in the study area to which the researcher tried to seek for solutions. It was guided by six research questions on effects of treatments on study habits and proneness to examination malpractice of students and six corresponding hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. The design of the study was quasi-experimental non-randomized control group pretest-posttest design. The population of the study consisted of all senior secondary students in public secondary schools in Nsukka education zone of Enugu State. The sample for the study was 108 (55 male and 53 female) students selected from three intact classes in the zone. The instruments for data collection were questionnaire titled“Study Habit Instrument” (SHI) and “Proneness to Examination Malpractice Instrument” (PEMI) developed by the researcher and validated by three experts in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The internal consistency of the instruments were obtained using Cronbach alpha statistics which yielded the estimates of 0.86 and 0.90 for SHI and PEMI respectively. These instruments were used to collect data from the subjects as pretest before treatment programmes which lasted for six weeks and were reshuffled by changing the serial numbers of the items and re-administered on the subjects as posttest after experiment. The data collected were analyzed using means and standard deviation to answer the research questions and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to test the research hypotheses. The result of study indicated that cognitive restructuring and bibliotherapy each had significant effect in improving the study habits of students. Furthermore, cognitive restructuring and bibliotherapy each had significant effect in reducing proneness to examination malpractice of secondary school students. There was no significant interaction effect of treatments and gender on study habits of students. But, there was significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on proneness to examination malpractice of students. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others that school guidance counselors should employ cognitive restructuring and bibliotherapy counselling to help in improving the study habits of students; guidance counselors should employ cognitive restructuring and bibliotherapy counselling to help students to be less prone to examination malpractice. Male and female students should be given equal opportunity to participate in counselling programme as both will benefit in improving their study habits and reducing their proneness to examination malpractice. Following some limitations of the study it was suggested that similar studies could be carried out using larger samples and using other techniques of behaviour modification on the dependent variables of the study in other Local Governments Areas and states of the federation.
