Incivility and its Impact on Students’ Social Adjustment in Secondary Schools in Bamenda III Municipality, North-West Region of Cameroon
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51699/mjssh.v1i8.445Keywords:
Incivility, Physical assault and Sexual Harassment and Students’ Social AdjustmentAbstract
This study is designed to investigate “Incivility and its Impact on Student Social Adjustment in Secondary Schools in Bamenda III Municipality, North West Region of Cameroon”. Specifically, the study seeks; to investigate the impact of sexual harassment on students’ social adjustment and to determine the impact of bullying on students’ social adjustment. A mixed methods design was used for the study. Questionnaires for students and interview guide for teachers were the instruments used for data collection and a purposive sampling technique was used to select respondents. A sample of 320 student were selected and administered the questionnaire and 40 teachers were selected to administer the interview guide for the study. Data was analysed quantitatively with the used of frequency count and percentages and qualitatively where in interviews were analysed using direct reporting. The normality assumption test was computed using Shapiro-Wilk test of significance which showed that the data was not uniformly distributed, consequently, the Spearman’s Rho test was used to test the hypothesis. Chi-square test was used to compare students’ responses of the conceptual components against their demograghic characteristics for significant differences. Finally, findings were presented using frequency distribution tables and charts and inferential statistic was presented 95% level of confidence interval with alpha at 0.05 levels accepting only 5% margin of errors. General findings indicated that; incivility has a significant and negative effect on students’ social adjustment. Physical assault has a significant and relatively strong and negative effect on students’ social adjustment (R-value = -0.506**, p-value 0.000<0.05). Also, sexual harassment has a significant, relatively strong and negative impact on student’s social adjustment (R-value = -0.501**, p-value 0.000<0.05). Based on the findings, some recommendations were made that policy makers should ensure proper creation, implementation and dissemination of policies to address incivility in schools. Also, parents, guardians and educators should assist students to behave in a civil manner in school by ensuring proper upbringing of the students, so as to inculcate integrity, morality, virtue and good values in the students.
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