A Psycholinguistic Study on the Comprehension of Passive Voice by Children Native Speakers of Jordanian Arabic (Published)
This study aims at examining the influence of age and gender factors on the Jordanian children’s comprehension of passive voice. Thirty children who belong to five age group from 3; 0 – 7; 11 years old participated in this study. Each of these groups include six children with equal number of males and females chosen randomly from an elementary school in Jordan. A comprehension test was given to children using six pairs of pictures that illustrate the contrast between the active and passive sentences. The findings indicate the Jordanian children exhibit an awareness of passive construction at an early age; at around three years of age. The gender variable was found statistically insignificant in the comprehension of passive voice.
Keywords: Age, Arabic, Comprehension, Jordanian, Passive
Influence of Age and Educational Level on Adjustment Strategies to Widowhood Stress in Rivers State, Nigeria (Published)
This study was designed to determine the extent to which age and educational level influence adjustment strategies to widowhood stress among widows in Rivers State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. Two research questions and two corresponding hypotheses guided the conduct of the study at 0.05 alpha levels. A sample of 370 widows in Rivers State was drawn from the population through proportional stratified random sampling technique. Two instruments namely; Stress Level Scale for Widows (SLSW) and Questionnaire for Widows Adjustment Strategies (QWAS), both developed by the researcher were used for data collection. Data were analysed with mean, standard deviation and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance and the statistical package known as SPSS for widows was employed for the analyses. Results showed that; widows in Rivers State differ significantly in their adjustment strategies to widowhood stress on the basis of age, educational attainment. Based on the findings of this work, three relevant recommendations were made one of which is that counsellors could systematically use the adjustment strategies studied in this research to help widows to cope with widowhood stress
Keywords: Adjustment, Age, Educational Level, Rivers State, Stress, Widowhood
Assertiveness Training And Cognitive Restructuring Technique On Self-Esteem Of Female Undergraduate Victims Of Relationship Violence In South-West Nigeria (Published)
This study used a pre-test-post-test, control group quasi-experimental design to investigate the effects of assertiveness training and cognitive restructuring technique on self-esteem of female undergraduate victims of relationship violence in south-west Nigeria. The sample for the study comprised of ninety female undergraduates students who have experienced relationship violence. They were screened using the Severity of Violence Against Women Scale (SVAWS) and selected through multi-stage sampling technique from three randomly selected Universities (Ibadan, Lagos and Olabisi Onobanjo) in South-west Nigeria. The participants were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The two treatment groups were exposed to eight-weeks training in Assertiveness and Cognitive Restructuring Training, while participants in the control group received no training. Two validated instrument: Severity of Violence Against Women Scale (SVAWS) and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were used. Three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data was analysed using Analysis of Covariance. There was significant main effect of treatment in the pre-post self-esteem scores of female undergraduate victims of relationship violence in the experimental and control groups (F(2,87) = 43.884, P < .05). Also, there was significant difference in the main effect of age in the pre-post self-esteem scores of female undergraduate victims of relationship violence between young and older participants (F (2,87) = 16.808, P < .05). However, that there was no significant interaction effect of age in the pre-post self-esteem scores of female undergraduate victims of relationship violence in the experimental and control groups (F(3,86) = 0.188, P < .05). Therefore, psychological intervention programmes should be put in place in universities through their counselling centres to help undergraduates rediscover their potentials and develop competence to relate intelligently with others.
Keywords: Age, Assertiveness Training, Cognitive Restructuring, Nigeria, South-west, University