Re-engineering Value Education as a catalyst for curbing Maladjusted Behavior among Students in Public Junior Secondary Schools in Rivers State

Abstract

The study examined the extent value education serves as a catalyst for curbing maladjusted behaviour among students in Public junior secondary schools in Rivers State. Two research questions were posed and answered, while two corresponding formulated hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. This study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population of this study consisted of 464 junior senior secondary schools’ civic education teachers in Rivers State. The sample size of the study consisted of 262 civic education teachers from the purposively selected Junior and senior secondary schools in Rivers State. The instrument for the study was a self-designed instrument titled "Value Education for curbing maladjusted behaviour Scale (VECMaBS)." The instrument was validated by three experts from Faculty of Education, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt. Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the reliability coefficient, which yielded value of 0.79. Data gathered from the two research questions were analysed using mean and standard deviation and the two formulated null hypotheses tested with Z-test at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female teachers on the extent to which the modification of the curriculum could help curb maladjusted behavior among students in Public junior secondary schools in Rivers and that there is no significant difference in the mean responses of male and female teachers on the extent to which the introduction of character education could help curb maladjusted behavior among students in public junior secondary schools in Rivers State. It was recommended that since value education is a process of teaching values, such as honesty, responsibility, respect, and empathy, to students, its aim should be to develop the character of students and equip them with ethical values that will guide their personal and professional lives. Therefore, teachers should teach students the importance of values such as honesty, integrity, and responsibility