Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Academic Stress Among Rural Community Secondary School Economics Students: A Randomized Controlled Evaluation

This study evaluated the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on the academic stress of rural community secondary school economic students. The study adopted the pre-test, post-test randomized control trial experimental design. The economics academic stress questionnaire (EASQ) was used for data collection using 168 secondary school economics students sampled from rural community schools in Southeast Nigeria. The instrument was validated by three experts in the area of the study and the internal consistency reliability index of the items was estimated as 0.83 using the Cronbach Alpha method. A pre-treatment assessment (pre-test) was conducted using the EASQ to collect baseline data. After that, the experimental group was exposed to 60  min of the CBT program once a week for 8 weeks. The data collected were analysed using mixed-design repeated analysis of variance. The findings of the study revealed that CBT had a significant effect on the management of academic stress among rural community secondary schools economics students. B ased on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that the use of CBT intervention will be helpful in the management of academic stress among rural community secondary school economics students. The implication of that is that CBT intervention is effective in the reduction of psychological prob lems and discomfort among students in order to improve their academic achievement.
Source: Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research