ABSTRACT

The study investigated the effects of cognitive restructuring and biliotherapy techniques on the reduction of anger manifestation of secondary school students. The study was guided by four research questions and two null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. A quasi-experimental design which adopted pretest and posttest, control group was used. The entire population of 41 identified aggressive students for the study was used as sample. This is because the number was not too large to manage. Subjects were assigned to each of the two treatment groups. Group A comprised 13 subjects (seven males and six females), and were assigned to cognitive restructuring technique, Group B comprised also 13 subjects (six males and seven females) and were assigned to bibliotherapy technique. Control group had fifteen subjects and was not given treatment. The research instrument used for data collection was a 25 item questionnaire titled anger behaviour inventory (ABI). The items were validated by three experts in terms of face validation. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha method. Based on the analysis, the result yielded internal consistency estimate of 0.94. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the four research questions of the study while the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to test the hypotheses at 0.05 significance level. The analysis of the data revealed the following findings: Students exposed to cognitive restructuring technique showed mean gain of -1.87 in terms of reducing their anger manifestation behaviour. Also, students exposed to bibliotherapy technique showed mean gain of -1.98 in terms of reducing their anger manifestation behaviour. The male and female students exposed to cognitive restructuring technique had mean gain scores of -1.78 and – 1.98 respectively in reducing their anger manifestation behaviour. The male and female students exposed to bibliotherapy technique had mean gain scores of -1.99 and -1.98 respectively in reducing their anger manifestation behaviour. Based on the findings, it implies that experts in counselling should modify programme intervention in counselling service to include cognitive restructuring and bibliotheraphy techniques for reducing anger manifestation behaviour of students. It was recommended that the federal and state ministries of education should organize and sponsor workshops and seminars for educational psychologists, and guidance counsellors on how to implement cognitive restructuring and bibliotherapy techniques in reducing anger manifestation of students.