Development of Soft Skill Scale (SSS) For Educational and Industrial Use in Nigeria (Published)
Globally, soft skill is a sought-after skill in the workplace. While this is obtainable and trendy at the global level, Nigeria should not be an exception. Hence, the present study developed Soft Skill Scale (SSS) for educational and industrial use in Nigeria. Triangulation research design based on Classical test theory was used to sample 887 participants from both educational and industrial sectors in Nigeria. One hundred and fifty (150) initial items of SSS were developed. Through Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the items were reduced to 110 at pilot study and 69 at post field level. To further affirm the validity of the instrument, a post-pilot study was carried out on 347 respondents. Analysis was done with factor analysis, Pearson Product Moment Correlation as well as Cronbach Alpha method. The findings of the study showed that 69 items loaded into the five factors. This includes communication 14 items, Organization 14 items, Teamwork 21 items, Creativity 7 items and Adaptability 13 items. Subscale-total correlation at both post-field and post-pilot phases yielded 0.73/0.61, 0.83/0.84, 0.89/0.85, 0.76/0.68, and 0.65/0.63 for communication, Organization, Teamwork, Creativity and Adaptability respectively. Cronbach Alpha reliability for full SSS was .96 at post-field and 0.95 at post-pilot phase. The post-pilot validity check all affirmed that SSS was highly valid. Based on this, it was recommended among others that SSS should be recognized and used in school and industrial settings.
Keywords: Reliability, Soft Skills, Test, validity
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