INFLUENCE OF NEED SATISFACTION ON PRONENESS TO STEALING AMONG FEMALE STUDENTS. A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPICS ON GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING
ABSTRACT
The study attempted to examine the influence of need satisfaction on proneness to stealing among students at University of Lagos. Some literatures were reviewed under relevant sub-headings.
The descriptive survey research design was employed in this study in order to assess the opinions of the selected respondents using the questionnaire and the sampling technique.
A total of 120 (one hundred and twenty) respondents were selected and used as sample of this study. Also three null hypotheses were formulated, tested and analysed using the independent t-test statistical tool and chi-square at 0.05 level of significance.
At the end of the analysis, the following results emerged:
1. Hypothesis one found that there is a significant influence of need satisfaction on proneness to stealing among students in schools.
2. Hypothesis two revealed that there is a significant difference in proneness to stealing among students who came from low socio-economic status homes.
3. Hypothesis three indicated that there is no significant gender difference in proneness to stealing among students in schools.
4. Finally, it was shown in hypothesis four that the ethnic backgrounds of students does not significantly influence their proneness to stealing in schools.
All the null hypothesis were tested at 0.05 level of significance.
CHAPTER ONE
1.1Introduction/Background to the Study
Discipline is defined in the dictionary of psychology as the control of conduct either by an external authority or by the individual himself (Drever, 1996).
Also Drever (1996) defined school discipline as the externally imposed or self-generated control of conduct to ensure its orderliness, social acceptability and conformity to the school regulations to guide the behaviour of the students and even the school staff.
Indiscipline is therefore presented by Adelabu (1990) as a problem behaviour or socially unacceptable behaviour which does not conform to the rules and regulations of the society or an institution.
Nwana (1975) investigated the types and intensity of offences in the Eastern State of Nigeria’s schools. He identified the following nine categories of indiscipline with percentage frequency of occurrence in parentheses:
Truancy (28.89), disobedience (15.22), drug abuse (13.95), assault and insult (12.18), dishonesty (11.6), wickedness (8.22), stealing (8.09), sex offences (1.66), strikes and mass demonstration (0.19).
Stealing, a frequent type of indiscipline carried out by students in our higher and lower institutions is like a parasite eating deep into the moral sanity of the youths. Stealing is very common among students at all educational levels be it in primary, secondary and tertiary, but more often than not such acts are treated or handled with levity as if they are normal. For example, students have pet names for stealing which tend to cover up and play down the real gravity of the offence. Such names include ‘pilfering’, ‘pick pocketing’, ‘tapping’ and so on (Olusakin, 1996).
According to the Webster reference dictionary, to steal means to take away dishonestly or wrongly especially secretly, to take, get or win by dishonest act or subtle means, to take, get or effect surreptitiously.
To take by surprise or without permission, with regard to the descriptions above, stealing in this content can be regarded as an act of taking somebody’s property secretly wrongly and unlawfully without his/her content (Uzodinma, 1998), so whatever name stealing is given by various individuals, stealing is stealing and it is bad in the society.
As Nkemdirim (2000) puts it, many people steal because of several reasons. There are people who steal because stealing also can be inherited from their parents, or blood relations, others do steal because they want to satisfy one need or the other. Most people steal in order to enrich themselves unduly, others steal because they want to satisfy their material needs while many steal because they associate with peers who are thieves or robbers. From any angle one view it stealing remains a wrong and undesired act which runs counter to the acceptable norms in any given society. It is a deviation from a normal behaviour and it is carried out by those who violate the norms, mores and positive values in the society.
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