Assessment of the Female Secondary Students’ Attitude towards Information on Personal Sexuality Skills in Ebonyi State of Nigeria

Abstract

Recent study has revealed the absence of formal programme of sexuality information in Ebonyi state secondary schools. Undoubtedly, this would create a gap in information flow on the all-round important sexuality life enhancing skills among the students. In this study therefore, assessment of the female secondary students’ attitude towards information on personal sexuality skills in Ebonyi State of Nigeria was determined. The descriptive survey research design was used for the study while the population comprised 63,793 female students in Ebonyi State Secondary Schools. A multistage sampling procedure involving clustering, stratification, simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used to select 1080 female students as sample for the study. Two specific objectives and corresponding number of research questions were used for the study. One null hypothesis was formulated and was tested using ANOVA at 0.5 level of significance. Instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire tagged Attitude towards Information on Personal Sexuality Skills Questionnaire (ATIOPSSQ). To estimate the internal consistency of the instrument, Cronbach Alpha’s Co- efficient was used and a reliability of r = 0.71 was established. Result of the study revealed after assessment that attitude towards information on personal sexuality skills among female secondary students in Ebonyi State of Nigeria was positive. It was also found that religious affiliation of the female secondary students had significant influence on their attitude towards information on personal sexuality skills. The study therefore concluded that since female secondary students in Ebonyi state of Nigeria favoured receiving information on personal sexuality skills, all efforts should be made to offer them the highly desired sexuality education. It was thus recommended amongst others that government, policy makers and NGOs should organize periodic comprehensive personal sexuality skills education in both primary and post primary schools in order to promote sexual health behaviours among the students.