Banditry and Psychological Wellbeing of Students in Catholic Secondary Schools in Shiroro Local Government, Niger State Nigeria

Abstract

This study addressed banditry and the psychological well-being of students in Catholic secondary schools in Shiroro LGA, Niger State, Nigeria. The study had three research objectives: to explore the prevalence of banditry incidents affecting Catholic secondary schools; to assess the psychological wellbeing of students; and to examine the relationship between banditry and psychological wellbeing of students in Catholic secondary schools in Shiroro LGA respectively. The Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems and Judith Herman’s Trauma Theories were adopted. The correlational design and the multistage sampling technique were employed to sample 262 research participants. The Carol Ryff and Ritcher and Martinez instruments were adapted for data collection. Descriptive data from 240 retrieved questionnaire was analyzed using Mean and Standard Deviations, while relationship between dependent and independent variables was determined using Pearson’s correlation. The study found that: banditry activities are prevalent; students have low level of psychological wellbeing as a result of exposure to banditry; and there is no linear correlation between between exposure to banditry and the psychological wellbeing of students in the study area. The study recommends the deployment of security apparatus and enactment of policies to put an end to banditry; establishment of counselling units in all schools; and regular assessment of students to determine their psychological wellbeing for early interventions. Base on the limitations of this study, future research directions suggested are: use of ethnographical design to assess the lived experiences of students in conflict zone; using the qualitative method and larger sample of interviewees to generate robust primary data that can be generalized on the population.