PEER PRESSURE AND SCHOOL TYPE AS CORRELATES OF TEENAGE PREGNANCY AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENUGU STATE

Abstract

Secondary school is a very important level of education in Nigeria where solid foundation for higher education and useful living is laid. It is established to provide the learners with opportunities to acquire necessary knowledge, skills and attitude as well as to develop mentally, socially, morally, physically, and spiritually. Unfortunately, many secondary school adolescents get fully initiated into heterosexual relationship leading to increase in the number of teenagers getting pregnant every year; which form a reflection of the state of the society. It is against the foregoing background that the study investigated peer pressure and school type as correlates of teenage pregnancy among adolescents in public secondary schools in Enugu State. Four research questions guided the study and four null hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance. The correlation research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 9,974 Senior Secondary School Two (SSII) female adolescent’s students in all public secondary schools in Enugu State. A sample of 996 female adolescent students was drawn for the study through multi-stage sampling technique. The instruments used for data collection were Peer Pressure Questionnaire (PPQ) and Teenage Pregnancy Questionnaire (TPQ). The instruments were face and content validated by three experts; while the construct validation was ascertained using the Varimax Rotation Method. Internal consistency coefficient 0.86 and 0.89, were obtained for PPQ and TPQ respectively, using Cronbach Alpha statistical method. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient and regression analysis were used for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that there is no significant relationship between peer pressure and teenage pregnancy. More so, the findings revealed that there is no significant relationship between mixed-six school and teenage pregnancy. In addition, the findings showed that there is no joint significant relationship among peer pressure, school type and teenage pregnancy. Based on the findings, the study recommended that Educative platforms and/or imitative at home, school, and in the media could create awareness about peer pressure and sex-related issues among in-school adolescents. School guidance and counselling coordinators should develop strategies that enable adolescents to channel their sexual energies into a productive venture, such as physical activity, life-skills training (example, creative arts and design), and reading of non-sexual storybooks. Public and private social welfare agencies should re-double their efforts in educating, counselling and rehabilitation of victims of teenage pregnancy. By these efforts, many of the adolescents could be encouraged to continue their education or engage in other meaningful activities to avoid early destitution and other life-threatening experiences resulting from teenage pregnancy