Childhood trauma and Effective Empirically Based Interventions

Trauma affects many children in various ways globally. According to SAMHSA (2017), the “occurrence of child trauma is very prevalent, and 75% of children reported experiencing at least one traumatic event by age 16”. Traumatic events consist of “psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; community or school violence; witnessing or experiencing domestic violence; national disasters or terrorism; commercial sexual exploitation; sudden or violent loss of a loved one; refugee or war experiences; military family-related stressors; physical or sexual assault; neglect; and serious accidents or life-threatening illness” (SAMHSA, 2017). This literature review evaluates three different attachment-based, trauma-informed interventions for young children 0 - 7 years of age which are: Attachment and BioBehavioural Catchup (ABC), Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Throughout this review, childhood trauma will be defined, and the current occurrence rates will be discussed. Furthermore, the descriptions of the above therapies, clinical trials, and research findings will be examined, and a discussion of the literature review findings will follow.

Towards an Integrative Model of Achievement Outcomes in Research Writing: A Predictive Analysis of Personal, Behavioural, and Environmental Factors.

The study examined the influence of self-efficacy (PF), student engagement (BF), and mentorship (EF) on student’s achievement outcome in research writing. The participants in the study were graduating students and were composed of a sample size of N=257. Convenience and snowball sampling techniques were adopted in the sample selection from within the university. The study employed an explanatory research design and used a one-way and factorial ANOVA as the statistical techniques for data analysis. All one-way ANOVA to determine the direct effects of Self-efficacy F(1, 255)= 6.46, p<.011, Student Engagement effect F(1, 255)=4.40, p<.036 and Mentoring F(1, 255)=17.38, p<.000 on Student’s achievement outcome in research writing were statistically significant, including the factorial ANOVA to determine the interaction effect of self-efficacy × student engagement × mentoring F(1,249)=9.56, p<.002. The interaction result suggests that students with high self-efficacy, high engagement and positive mentoring are likely to have high levels of achievement outcome in research writing. In contrast, a combination of low self-efficacy, negative mentoring and low student engagement is likely to lead to a very low achievement outcome in research writing.

Case Studies of Two Second Language Learners of English

This study focuses on the factors that affect learners in learning English as a second language and the different types of errors. It also focuses on the strategies that are followed by the two second language learners during a three-month period and how they may help to understand the behaviourism theory, cognitive theory, and socio-cultural theory. The aims of the study are to explore how learners learn a second language, to highlight methods that they use to learn English and to examine their abilities in English. The methods that are used for data collection are an interview, a grammar test, samples of writing in English, and observation. The findings are analysed in relation to behaviourism theory, cognitive theory, and socio-cultural theory. The findings reveal that age, motivation, and personality are the main factors that affect the two learners. It appears that the Critical Period Hypothesis may have an impact only in pronunciation and oral communication rather than grammatical ability. The study also shows that the socio-cultural context is the most essential theory in learning a second language as it considers mental processes and the socio-cultural context.

Community Health Workers and The Promotion of Health Care Services in Gasabo District, Rwanda

Health care is a primary need of human being. Life expectancy as an indicator of Human Development is below 40 years in most developing countries due to high Maternal Mortality Rate, HIV prevalence, Infant Mortality rate, Malaria prevalence and many other related diseases. This study examined the importance of Community Health Workers (CHWs) role in promoting Health Care services in Gasabo District of Rwanda. A simple random sampling method with the use of a self-administered questionnaire to get primary data was used as well as a literature review for secondary data. The target population was 1500 CHWs with a sample size of 183 CHWs. 55.6% of CHWs have a role of monitoring Malnutrition & growth for children under the age of 5years, 43.2% monitor women during their pregnancy period and diagnose and treat Malaria, Diarrhoea & Pneumonia for children under 5 years old. Other roles of CHWs include; providing health education (43% of CHWs), providing Family Planning services to women (24%), and sensitizing the community for HIV/AIDS testing (14.3%), psychosocial support (11%) and Vaccination (9.8%). The challenges faced by CHWs to accomplish their roles include; transportation facilitation (39.9%), limited time (32.8%), negative perception by communities (37.7%) and no monthly salary pay (38.8%). Although the work of CHWs in Rwanda is voluntary, however, the Ministry of Health should invest more in their work through the provision of transportation facilitation and motivational incentives CHWs.

Skills Improvement of Teachers in Technical Colleges for Sustainable National Development in Nigeria: Training and Retraining a Universal Remedy

The current study examined training and retraining for skills improvement of teachers in technical colleges for sustainable national development in Nigeria. Three research questions and three hypotheses were raised for the study. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 273 technical teachers in 9 approved technical colleges in Lagos state. A sample of 90 technical teachers was used for the study. A 20-item structured questionnaire constructed by the researchers was used for data collection. Reliability was tested using Cronbach Alpha and a value of 0.87 was obtained. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of the mean and standard deviation to answer research questions. Independent t-test was used to analyse three hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significances. The findings revealed that teachers perceive the availability of training and retraining programmes and sustainable national development can be achieved through training and retraining of teachers as training and retraining programmes can improve teachers’ skills of duties performance. The researchers therefore concluded and recommends that more efforts should be made by relevant bodies such government, higher institutions, professional bodies and among others to put in place more training and retraining programmes for teachers of technical colleges and they should also be encouraged to attend and participate in such programmes to improve their skills in order enable them to function effectively for sustainable national development to be achieved.

Literature Circles: Creating an Environment of Fluency and Fun

Literature circles create an opportunity for students to make reading a fun-filled activity and at the same time develop their fluency skills. This action research examined the efficacy of creating literature circles in the classroom as an intervention program to address students’ problems in reading fluency specifically in terms of phrasing and accuracy. Furthermore, it also investigated the attitudes of students’ toward reading before and after they became members of a literature circle. The study was conducted among 30 grade 7 students from the same section who belong to the frustration level during the oral reading assessment done at the beginning of the school year. Results of the study revealed that there was an improvement in the students phrasing in reading after the 10-week intervention period but not significantly enough to improve their fluency. On the other hand, a significant difference was observed on the students’ reading rate after the intervention period. Furthermore, the students’ attitudes toward reading have also positively changed after they became members of the literature circles. The study concluded that the creation of literature circles in the classroom could improve students’ reading fluency.

Tungiasis in Western Kenya: Knowledge, Perceptions, and Practices of Household Heads – A Crossectional Study

Background: According to reports of AHADT Kenya, tungiasis afflicts four million Kenyans with 10 million more at risk of severe infestation. Anecdotal reports suggest that lack of knowledge and retrogressive beliefs and practices of household heads, them being the key decision makers in rural homes, might be barriers to the control of tungiasis. Objective: To assess the knowledge, perceptions, and practices of household heads regarding tungiasis in Kenya Methodology: A crossectional study was done in Otwenya Location, Maseno Division, Kenya. Seventy-eight (78) homes were visited and all their household members checked for the presence of tungiasis. Structured pretested questionnaires were used to collect the socio demographic data of household heads and the knowledge, perceptions, and practices around tungiasis evaluated. Data analysis was done using version 21 of the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) software. A modified technique by Memon et al. was used to compute the knowledge and attitude scores. Fisher’s exact test with Cochran Mantel Haenszel statistics was used for data analyses at 95% CI. Results: Our data was collected in Urudi Rata (39.7%), Mbeka (35.6%), and Mariwa (24.4%) villages. Most houses had iron sheer roofs (93.6%) and floors plastered with dung or cement (60.3%). Household heads were mainly female (71.8%) with primary level education (67.9%). Tungiasis was found in 39.7% of households. Earth floors (OR=11.1, P<0.01) and overcrowding (OR=3.4, p=0.04) were risk factors for tungiasis. Most respondents (75.7%) had a moderate knowledge of tungiasis with it being lowest among heads with no formal education (OR=35.56 (1.7 to 732.6), p=0.02). The knowledge of tungiasis did not influence its occurrence in homes. (p=0.49). Most respondents (82.1%) had poor perceptions of tungiasis, which did not vary by the age, education, and gender of household. However, odds of infestation was over 4.9 times higher in homes where household head had negative perception of tungiasis (OR=4.9 p=0.03). The extraction of fleas (91.1%) was the commonest treatment option. Conclusion: Tungiasis is a common ectoparasitosis in rural Kenya with a prevalence of 19.5%. Household heads are knowledge about tungiasis. However, retrogressive beliefs, negligence, and stigma are barriers for its control.

ONAH, C. IMPACT OF CULTISM ON MANAGEMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MAKURDI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, BENUE STATE

This research examined the Impact of Cultism on Management of Secondary Schools in Makurdi Local government areas of Benue State. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated and tested. 1375 teachers from 10 public secondary schools in Makurdi L.G.A were selected. A well-structured questionnaire titled Cultism and Management of Secondary Schools Questionnaire (CMSSQ) was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using Mean and standard deviations to answer the research questions, while chi-square (X2) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significances. The findings showed that cultism has an impact on the management of secondary schools in Makurdi Local Government Area. Based on the result of the findings, it was recommended that. Head teachers need to share their vision with other staff in the school as this improves primary school teachers’ levels of job satisfaction. Also, a mentoring program is strongly recommended for newly appointed and underperforming serving head teachers. Keywords: Management, Cultism, Benue State, Schools

Development of oddity concept learning in children: an evidence of intra-modal transfer

We investigated the formation of oddity concept in human subjects by means of multiple oddity discrimination tasks. Four human subjects were concurrently trained to discriminate an odd object from three identical objects in a row where the former one was reinforced. Discrimination tasks were gradually increased (e.g. 12 oddity tasks, 30 oddity tasks). Two out of four human subjects rapidly learned the acquisition tasks with higher accuracy rate suggesting that they seemed to avoid responding based on the strategy of the item-specific learning and to adopt relational processing. This assumption was stronger when robust transfer of learning with higher accuracy in baseline training performances was showed by them in transfer test 1 and transfer test 2. Although these findings offer evidence of relational oddity learning in humans, the possibility of the effect of stimulus generalization and the sense of perceptual oddity could not be excluded.

MARITAL DISSATISFACTION AMONG NEWLY MARRIED TEACHERS

Marital dissatisfaction is the most important issue in marital life which has the highest effect on the stability and failure of couples’ lives. Therefore, this study explored the efficacy of Emotionally Focused Therapy and religiosity on marital dissatisfaction among newly married teachers in Ibadan, Oyo State. Pretest-posttest, control group quasi-experimental design with a 2x2 factorial matrix was used in the study. Simple random sampling technique was used in sampling 80 participants from 4 local government areas in the state. The respondents were measured with validated marital dissatisfaction scale with a reliability coefficient of .87 and the data obtained was analysed using t-test statistical analysis. The result showed that there was a significant difference in marital dissatisfaction among newly married teachers exposed to emotionally focused therapy and those in the control group and newly married teachers with high religiosity and those with low religiosity. In view of these findings, the study recommended that counselling psychologists should intensify their effort to organize conferences on the implications of emotionally focused therapy and religiosity as effective interventions towards reducing marital dissatisfaction.