Influence of Child Abuse on Academic Performance of Students in Public Junior Secondary Schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of child abuse on academic performance of students in public junior secondary 
schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State. The study specifically examined the influence of physical abuse, 
sexual abuse and emotional abuse as factors of child abuse on students’ academic performance. Three research 
questions and corresponding hypotheses guided the study; the study adopted a descriptive survey design. The 
population of this study consisted of all 45 public junior secondary schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis with a 
population of 75,476 students. Taro Yamane’s method was applied to the population of Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor 
local Government areas that form the metropolis to fix a sample size of 791 for the study. The instrument for data 
collection was a structured questionnaire titled: “Influence of Child Abuse on Students Academic Performance
(ICAonSAP)” which was validated by two experts in Guidance and Counselling, and Measurement and Evaluation. 
Cronbach Alpha Formula was used to obtain a reliability index of α = 0.89. Mean and standard deviation was used to 
answer the research questions, while t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The 
result shows that physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse as factors of child abuse influenced students’ 
academic performance. Consequently, it was recommended among others, that P.T.A (Parents Teachers Association), 
through town hall meeting should enlighten parents and caregivers on how to manage parents- child relationship in 
order to reduce or avoid completely child abuse, as the implications for such contribute to poor social and academic 
performance of students