Causes and effects of marital conflict on educational and social development of primary school pupils in the north-west zone B educational district, Benue State, Nigeria: teachers perception

Abstract

The study investigated the causes and effects of marital conflict, as perceived by teachers, on the educational and social development of pupils in primary schools. A sample size of 400 respondents (255 males and 145 females) were drawn from the entire population in the seven local government areas of the district. The survey research design was adopted for the study. The instrument used for data collection was the questionnaire based on Teachers Perception on Marital conflict (TPMCO). The data collected were subjected to mean evaluation, while the chi-square (X2) was used to test hypothesis. The findings revealed that 55,0% of teachers agreed that infidelity was the major cause of marital conflict with the highest mean value of 4.27, followed by poor communication between couple having 30,5% of respondents, with a mean value of 3.92. The deprivation of instructional materials, followed by poor academic performance respectively, with the mean values of 4.82 and 3.94, were perceived by teachers, in order of ranking, as the most serious issues affecting the educational and social development of primary school pupils as a result of marital conflict. Love followed by encouragement were perceived by teachers to be the major ways in improving the educational and social development of pupils from conflict ridden homes. On hypothesis testing, marital conflict significantly (P≤0.05) affected the educational and social development of pupils, thus null hypothesis was rejected, while the alternate hypothesis was accepted.