PATH-ANALYTIC INVESTIGATION OF SOME PSYCHO-SOCIAL VARIABLES AFFECTING ADJUSTMENT TO SCHOOL TRANSITION AMONG FRESH SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SOUTH-EASTERN NIGERIA

Abstract

Ineffective school adjustment is one of the challenges of academic achievement in secondary schools in Nigeria. Poor adjustment to school transition has negative effects on student's well-being which in turn adversely affect their performance. Studies revealed that issues such as anxiety, attitude to school, motivation, interest in schooling, peer influence etc impact positively and negatively on secondary school student's transition from one class to another. However, there is paucity of studies on adjustment to school transition among fresh secondary school students' in Nigeria. There is therefore, the need to explore combination of factors that are capable of determining adjustment to school transition. Thus, the direct and indirect effects of the psycho-social variables (achievement motivation, self-efficacy, interest and emotional intelligence), (peer influence, attitude, socio-economic status, age and gender) on adjustment of fresh secondary school students to school transition were examined in this study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design of ex-post facto type. Multistage random sampling technique was used to select 1,200 participants from 3 public secondary schools each in ten local government areas of the five Southeastern states. Eight instruments used in the study were: Academic Achievement Motivation Scale (?= 0.86); Academic Self-efficacy Scale (?= 0.82); Peer Influence Scale (?= 0.76); Attitude to School Scale (?= 0.68); Interest in Schooling Scale (?= 0.79); Emotional Intelligence Scale (?= 0.87); Socioeconomic Status Scale (?= 0.64) and School transition Adjustment Scale (?= 0.79). Seven research questions were answered at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using multiple regression (backward solution) and path analysis. A total of 6 direct and indirect significant pathways were identified. Out of these, four pathways were direct. These were emotional intelligence and adjustment to school transition (?=0.15),interest and adjustment to school transition (? = -0.09),achievement motivation and adjustment to school transition(? = 0.15) and gender and adjustment to school transition (? =-0.10), while two were indirect and these were attitude and socioeconomic status; interest and peer influence and interest and socioeconomic status; peer influence and gender among others. The total effects of the selected factors on adjustment to school transition indicated that 54.0% was direct, while 46.0% was indirect. This indicates that the entire psycho-social variables contributed differentially to adjustment to school transition among fresh secondary school students with the direct pathways having more impact than the indirect pathways. The nine variables contributed a total of 23.0% to the total variance observed on the measure of adjustment to school transition. Emotional intelligence, interest, achievement, motivation and gender had impact on adjustment to school transition. Fresh students should be given support that would have direct effects on their adjustment to school transition. Thus, counseling and educational psychologists should explore and consider the usefulness of variables that have indirect link with adjustment to school transition such as interest in schooling, peer influence and socioeconomic status while planning orientation programme for fresh students.