SPOUSAL ABUSE AND MARRIED TEACHERS’ AGGRESSIVENESS IN ONITSHA EDUCATION ZONE OF ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA.

Abstract

The issue of marital problems such as spousal abuse is worldwide, and affects the relationship between spouses as well as the physical, cognitive and psychosocial aspect of individuals involved - particularly the victims. It also leads to the manifestation of some behavioral problems such as aggression that affects the individual’s professionalism in their workplace, which in this research pertains to the teachers. The study therefore investigated the relationship between spousal abuse and married teachers’ aggressiveness. A correlational research design was employed with three research questions and hypotheses guiding the study. A sample size of 298 married teachers in secondary schools in Onitsha Education Zone of Anambra state was purposively selected for the study. Researcher-made instruments titled Spousal Abuse Scale (SAS) and Aggression scale (AS) were utilized for the study after being validated by specialists in Educational Psychology and Measurement and Evaluation. Their reliabilities were ascertained using Cronbach Alpha method to determine their internal consistencies which yielded .79 and .81 for SAS and AS respectively. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer research questions while hypotheses were tested using t-test at .05 level of significance. The result of the study showed a significant relationship between spousal abuse and married teachers’ aggressiveness, a significant gender difference in spousal abuse with female teachers experiencing spousal abuse than the males; a significant gender difference in married teachers’ aggressiveness with female teachers being more aggressive than the male teachers. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that Teachers with marital problems should enroll for therapy to help them deal with emotional problems that may emanate from such marital issue, so as not to interfere with their job.