Authoritarian and Authoritative Parenting Styles as Correlates of Students’ Tendency to Abuse Drugs in Rivers State, Southern Nigeria (Published)
The study investigated Authoritarian and Authoritative parenting styles and as correlates of student’s abuse of drugs in Rivers State, Nigeria. Three research questions and three corresponding null-hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted correlational design. A sample size of 400 SS I and SS II students drawn from the population of 22,413 secondary school students through simple and non-proportionate stratified random sampling techniques were used for the study. Two instruments used in the study were Parenting Style Scale (PSS) and Abuse of Drugs Inventory (ADI). The instruments were validated by three experts in Educational Measurement and Evaluation. The reliabilities of the instruments were determined using Cronbach Alpha techniques. The reliability coefficients obtained were 0.81, 0.77, 0.84 and 0.73 for Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive and Uninvolved Parenting Styles respectively and Abuse of Drugs inventory had a reliability coefficient of 0.79. Multiple Regression and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used in data analysis. The results revealed that Authoritarian and Authoritative Parenting Styles do not significantly correlate with students abuse of drugs. The conclusion drawn from this study is that parenting style had a significant joint contribution in determining the outcome of children’s abuse of drugs, while some parenting styles (e.g. authoritative and authoritarian) are negatively associated with abuse of drugs. Based on the results, recommendations were made, one of which was that parents should adopt authoritative parenting style in rearing their children as this has been shown to minimize the tendency of them to be involved in abuse of drugs.
Citation: Amadi U. and Chujor J. C. (2023) Authoritarian and Authoritative Parenting Styles as Correlates of Students’ Tendency to Abuse Drugs in Rivers State, Southern Nigeria, European Journal of Educational and Development Psychology, Vol.10, No.3, pp.70-81,
Keywords: Adolescents, Authoritarian, Authoritative, Drug Abuse, Parenting style
Parenting Styles as Correlates of Students’ Attitude towards Examination Malpractices in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State: Implications for Counselling (Published)
Parenting styles refers to practices adopted by parents in rearing their children. A good parenting style is needed to develop in a child interpersonal relationship, capacity to take initiatives, self-reliance, motivation and to conform to societal acceptable code of conduct. Bad parenting style is counterproductive and may as well get children involved in antisocial behaviours including examination malpractices. This work is a correlational study intended to determine the relationship between parenting styles and students’ attitude towards examination malpractices. Three research questions and three hypotheses were designed to guide the study. The instruments for data collection were Students’ Attitude to Examination Malpractices Scale and Parenting Style Scale. These instruments were vetted by three experts in Educational Psychology. The reliability coefficient of Attitude to Examination Malpractices Scale measured through test-retest method and Pearson product moment correlation technique was 0.86. The reliability indices of sections of Parenting Style Scale established through Cronbach Alpha technique were 0.68, 0.81, 0.73 and 0.84 for sections A, B, C and D respectively. It was found that though, majority of the students showed negative attitude towards examination malpractices, a sizeable percentage of them showed positive attitude towards the malaise. Authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and neglectful parenting styles had a significant joint relationship with students’ attitude towards examination malpractices. Authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles each had individual negative relationship with students’ attitude towards examination malpractices while neglectful parenting style had a positive relationship with students’ attitude towards examination malpractices. Based on these findings, it is imperative for the counsellors to assist prospective couples through premarital counselling or marital counselling to adopt good parenting styles especially authoritative parenting style in nurturing their children. Appreciable number of counsellors should be employed by the government of Rivers State and sent to secondary schools to help maladjusted students acquire good value re-orientation that will enable them distinguish what is good from what is bad with a view to avoiding negative tendencies including examination malpractices
Keywords: Authoritarian, Authoritative, Corruption, Examination, Fraud, Test, antisocial behaviour, cheating, malpractices, neglectful parenting styles, permissive