Social

Social Support, Coping Strategies and Academic Adjustment of First Year University Undergraduates in Rivers State, Nigeria. (Published)

This study was designed to determine the extent to which social support, and coping strategies predict academic adjustment of first year university undergraduates in Rivers State, Nigeria. Correlation design was adopted for the study. Three research questions and three corresponding hypotheses guided the conduct of the study at 0.05 alpha levels. A sample of 382 first year university undergraduates of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, 2015/2016 academic session was drawn from the population through purposive and proportional stratified random sampling techniques. Three instruments namely; Multidimensional Scale for Perceived Social Support, Coping Strategies Inventory and Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire – Academic subscale were used for data collection. Simple and multiple regression analyses were used for data analysis. All data were subjected to analysis using statistical package for social science (SPSS). Results showed that; social support statistically significantly predicted academic adjustment of first year university undergraduates; coping strategies (problem-focused and emotion-focused) taken together statistically significantly predicted academic adjustment of first year university undergraduates; on the basis of individual contribution, problem-focused was a significant contributor to academic adjustment of first year university undergraduates while emotion-focused was not. Based on the findings, conclusion and recommendations were made.

Keywords: Academic, Coping, Social, Strategies., and adjustment, support

Socio-Cultural and Environmental Determinants of Youth Gambling: Evidence from Ghana (Published)

The gambling behaviour of the youth is among the least explored research areas in Ghana. Most previous study focused on youth and employment, youth and development, youth and politics, youth empowerment, youth and education, youth and HIV/AIDS and more recently youth and agriculture. The big question is how much do we know about youth and problem gambling as Ghanaians? This study deployed social learning theory and social conflict theory by Albert Bandura and Karl Max respectively as the underpinning philosophies to assess youth gambling attitude in Ghana in order to fill this knowledge gap. A cross sectional descriptive survey approach was adopted for this study. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 200 youth from all the nine sub metro within Kumasi metropolis. Structured questionnaire was the main instrument used in gathering primary data. Data were analyzed with Predictive Analytic Software (PASW) for windows. The results were presented using regression, correlation, ANOVA and percentages. The study revealed that all the factors outlined to predict youth gambling behaviour were significant (R² = 0.822, ANOVA < 0.05). Furtherance, 1% change in familial factors will bring 70.7% (0.841²) in youth attitude towards gambling. Moreover, 1% change in social factors will bring 22.9% (0.479²) change in youth attitude towards gambling. Also, a unit change in cultural and demographic factors will bring 4.7% (0.219²) change in youth attitude towards gambling. Finally, a unite change in environmental factor will bring 2% (0.142²) change in youth attitude towards gambling. It is recommended that future studies should consider factors such as cognitive and economic factors to determine youth gambling behaviour.

Keywords: Cultural and Environmental factors, Gambling, Ghana, Social, Youth, attitude

EMOTIONAL, SOCIAL, COGNITIVE INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL SUPPORT NETWORK AMONG YOUTHS (Published)

The aim of the current study was to investigative the relationship that exists among emotional, social, cognitive intelligence and social support network among youths. Correlational research design was adopted for this study. Three hypotheses were formulated to guide this study. The population consisted of all youths in Rivers State. A sample of 856 respondents was drawn from the population using cluster sampling technique. Four instruments were used for data collection. They included Emotional Intelligence Behavior Inventory (EQBI) by Akinboye, Multidimensional Scale for Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) by Gregory, et al., Tomso Social Intelligence Scale (TSQS), and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficient was used to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Results indicated that emotional, social and cognitive intelligence demonstrated significant positive relationship with social support network among youths. Based on the findings, conclusion and recommendations were made.

Keywords: Emotional, Social, cognitive intelligence, social support network and youths