Teachers Awareness And Usage Of Non-Violent Strategies For The Maintenance Of Discipline In Nigerian Secondary Schools: A Situational Analysis

Abstract

This study sought to determine teachers level of awareness and usage of non-violent strategies/interventions for the maintenance of discipline in secondary schools in Anambra State, Nigeria. Corporal punishment has become an unwritten sine qua non for the maintenance of school discipline - often the first thought that comes to the minds of teachers in treating acts of indiscipline and deviance. From the Nnewi Education Zone, comprising four local government areas (LGAs), 200 teachers were selected for descriptive survey out of 996 teachers. Stratified random sampling was used such that the schools were stratified into co-educational and single-sex schools, and from each randomly selected school, 10 teachers were selected. Two research questions and four null hypotheses guided this study, and questionnaire was used to collect data. The mean was used to answer the research questions and t-test for the hypothesis at the 0.05 level of significance. The study recommended in-service training for teachers in educational psychology, particularly behaviour modification methods, parental input and interest in school discipline as well as the cessation of corporal punishment among others.