INFLUENCE OF CHILD EMOTIONAL ABUSE ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS IN ENUGU STATE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent child emotional abuse influence the academic performance of primary school pupils in Enugu State. One research question and one null hypothesis were formulated and tested at .05 level of significance. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population for the study comprised all the ten thousand five hundred and thirty-seven (10,537) public primary school teachers in Enugu State. The sample for the study is 527 public primary school teachers in Enugu State. The researcher used proportionate random sampling technique to draw 162 male and 365 female populations of public primary school teachers in Enugu State. A self-structured instrument was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha reliability estimate. The researcher administered the instrument directly to the respondents using six briefed research assistants. Out of the 527 copies of the administered instrument, only 423 copies were retrieved while 104 copies were not retrieved. Mean (x̅) with Standard Deviation (SD) was used to answer the research question. However, the hypothesis was tested using t-test statistic at .05 level of significance. From the result of the findings, it was concluded that emotional abuse to a little extent influence academic performance of primary school pupils in Enugu State. Consequently, no significant difference was found between the mean scores of male and female primary school teachers on the extent to which emotional abuse influenced academic performance of primary school pupils in Enugu State. Based on the findings of the study the researcher recommended that efforts should be made by the stakeholders to further reduce the level of child abuse and neglect among primary school pupils by enforcement of the requisite laws.