SELF-CONTROL TECHNIQUES AND MARITAL COUNSELLING ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN ABA NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ABIA STATE

Abstract

The  study  investigated  the  efficacy  of  self-control  techniques  and  marital  counseling  on domestic violence among primary school teachers in Aba North Local Government Area of Abia State. --The study adopted pretest-posttest non-randomized quasi-experimental  control group  design.  Two  research  questions  were  answered  while  two  null  hypotheses  were formulated and tested at 0.05 levels of significance. A sample of 36 (18 males and 18 female) primary school teachers selected form three schools by purposive sampling technique was used. Two schools consisted  the experimental  groups and the other the control.  A 2 item instrument titled “Domestic Violence Questionnaire (DVQ) was developed, validated and a reliability index of 0.86 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha method. The researcher with the assistance of six trained research assistants and school counselors carried out the treatment. The trained research assistants and school counselors served as contingency manager during the treatment. Measures were adopted to control possible extraneous influences capable of jeopardizing  the validity of the study.  This study  adopted  a systematic  three  phase plan, namely; pre-treatment phase and follow-up. The pre-treatment test involved preliminary introduction and pre-test assessment that formed the base line data for the study. The second phase dealt with the actual manipulation of experimental condition effect of the treatment. The treatment lasted for five weeks for all the treatment groups. There were three sections in a week which lasted for 40 minutes for the treatment groups only.  The control groupwas a waitlist  control  group.  The domestic  violence  Questionnaire  (DVQ)  was  used  to  identify couples with differentiated domestic violence levels in distress and conflict and was also used for  pre-treatment,  post-treatment  assessments  and  follow-up  assessment.  Data  obtained through  the administration  of the instrument  were analyzed  using  mean  scores,  standard deviation to answer the research questions and 2 x 1 analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to test the null hypotheses. The study revealed that intervention using self-control and marital counseling  significantly  reduced  the rate of domestic violence of primary school teachers who were engaged in domestic violence. There was evident from the fact that primary teacher couples  treated  with  self-control  and  marital  counseling  had  lower  post-test  domestic violence mean score than those in the control group. Based on the findings of the study, it was  recommended  that  functional  counseling  centres  should  be  established  at  primary education level and professional counselors employed to fully utilize the therapies to assess the rat of domestic violence of couples.