BEHAVIOURAL REHEARSAL COUNSELLING TECHNIQUE FOR REDUCING SOCIAL ANXIETY AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ILORIN METROPOLIS, NIGERIA: A GENDER-MODERATED QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
Keywords:
behavioural rehearsal counselling technique, social anxiety, secondary school students, Ilorin MetropolisAbstract
This study examined the effect of Behavioural Rehearsal Counselling Technique (BRCT) in reducing social anxiety among secondary school students in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria. A one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was adopted. From the identified population, 10 secondary school students with high social anxiety scores were purposively selected to participate in the intervention. Data were collected using the Social Anxiety Scale (SAS) developed by Yahaya and Nyarko-Sampson (2016). Paired-samples t-tests were used to examine changes in the physical, behavioural, and cognitive components of social anxiety, while MANCOVA was used to examine the moderating role of gender. The findings indicated statistically significant pretest-posttest reductions in the physical component, t(9) = 9.91, p < .001; behavioural component, t(9) = 7.25, p < .001; and cognitive component, t(9) = 8.71, p < .001. The multivariate analysis indicated that gender did not significantly moderate the treatment outcome, Pillai’s Trace = .395, F(3, 5) = 1.09, p = .434. The study concludes that BRCT shows promise as a counselling intervention for reducing social anxiety among secondary school students, although the very small sample and absence of a control group require cautious interpretation. It is recommended that school counsellors and psychologists consider BRCT as part of a broader intervention programme for students experiencing social anxiety.References
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