EFFECT OF COGNITIVE RESTRUCTURING AND GENDER ON LEARNING DIFFICULTIES IN THE COVID- 19 ERA AMONG GOVERNMENT SECONDARY SCHOOLS STUDENTS IN KADUNA METROPOLIS, NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper investigated the effect of cognitive restructuring technique and

gender on learning difficulties in the Covid -19 era among Government

Secondary School Students in Kaduna Metropolis, Nigeria. The study employed

quasi-experimental of pretest and posttest group design, in which selected

participants were assigned to treatment group. The population of the study

consisted of one hundred and forty five (145) students with learning difficulties

from senior secondary school (SS1), both male and females between the age of

fourteen to sixteen (14-16) years. Stratified sampling technique was used to

select two schools from two 2 Education Zones. Purposeful sampling technique

was used in selecting the participants. The sample includes 15 students identified

from their school records with the problems of learning difficulties were selected

and used for this study. Two research questions and two hypotheses were

formulated to guide the study and were tested at p < 0.05 alpha level of

significance. Independent t- test statistic was used for testing hypothesis one,

Results from data analysis revealed that there is significant difference of

Cognitive restructuring Technique on Learning difficulties among secondary

school students (t = 2.79, p = 0.011). Hypothesis two was tested using

ANCOVA statistic. It was revealed that there is significant difference of

cognitive restructuring Technique on learning difficulties between male and

female government secondary school students in favour of male (f = 4.13, p =

0.006). It was recommended that school psychologists, teachers and counsellors

should be exposed to training workshop on cognitive restructuring in

readdressing learning difficulties more especially on female among students in

government secondary school in Kaduna Metropolis among others.