Effect of Emotional Literacy Training on Academic Adjustment, Academic Self-Efficacy and Emotional Intelligence Skills of Secondary School Students in Enugu State

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of emotional literacy training on academic adjustment, academic self-efficacy and emotional Intelligence skills of JS2 students in Enugu State. Nine specific purposes of the study with corresponding nine research questions and nine null hypotheses guided the study. The design adopted for the study was quasi- experimental design, a non equivalent control group design. The population of this study comprised of 23,780 JS2 students in the co-educational public secondary schools in Enugu State. A sample of 161 JS2 students, made up of 91 males and 70 females from four intact classes drawn through multi-stage sampling procedure. Three instruments namely Students’ Academic Adjustment Questionnaire (SAAQ), Students’ Academic Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (SASEQ) and Students’ Emotional Intelligence Skills Questionnaires (SEISQ) were used to collect data for the study. The instruments were validated by five experts, two from Educational Psychology, two from Measurement and Evaluation and one from Adult Education, all in Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka. An internal consistency reliability estimate of 0.82, 0.87 and 0.80 were obtained respectively for the three instruments using Cronbach Alpha formula. Data collected for the study were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, and analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result of this study showed that emotional literacy training had positive effects on academic adjustment, academic self-efficacy and emotional intelligence skills of JS2 students in Enugu State. Also it was evident from the findings of the study that gender was not a significant factor on the students’ academic adjustment, students’ academic self-efficacy and emotional intelligent skills of students. The study also showed that the interaction effects of the treatment and gender on the students’ academic adjustment, academic self-efficacy and emotional intelligent skills was not significant. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that the curriculum planners should include emotional literacy training in the curriculum and that the government through the educational board should organize seminar, workshops, in-service training and conferences to train teachers to use emotional literacy for students in Nigerian schools especially in Enugu state