EFFICACY OF SEXUALITY EDUCATION ON KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND SEXUAL RIGHTS PROTECTIVE BEHAVIOUR OF FEMALE STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGES OF EDUCATION, ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Sexual rights of girls and women are often times violated with attendant health consequences, such as unwanted pregnancies, abortion, stigmatisation and sexually transmitted infections. Studies in sexuality education have focused largely on sexual coercion and sexually transmitted infections with little attention paid to sexual rights protective behaviour. This study was, therefore, conducted to examine the efficacy of sexuality education on knowledge, attitude and sexual right protective behaviour of female students in the Colleges of Education (CoEs), Anambra State, Nigeria. The moderating effects of age and level of study were also examined.

Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory provided the framework, while the pretest-posttest control group quasi experimental design of 2x2x3 factorial matrix was adopted. Multistage sampling procedure was used. The two public CoEs in Anambra State (Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe (NOCEN) and Federal College of Education (Technical) Umunze (FCET) were enumerated. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 410 female students in NOCEN and 270 from FCET. The NOCEN and FCET were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Knowledge of Sexual Rights (r=0.71), Attitude Towards Sexual Right (r = 0.84) and Sexual Rights Protective Behaviour (r= 0.77) scales were used. Treatment lasted eight weeks. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Analysis of covariance at 0.05 level of significance.

Participants’ age was 22.30±3.1 years. There were significant main effects of treatment on knowledge (F(1; 665) = 295.63, partial η2 = .31), attitude (F (1; 665) = 358.94, partial η2 = .35) and sexual rights protective behaviour (F(1; 665) = 249.63, partial η2 = .27). The participants in sexuality education group obtained higher mean score in knowledge - 27.14; attitude - 17.46; sexual right protective behaviours - 16.99 than those in the control group; knowledge - 21.24; attitude - 10.72; sexual right protective behaviours -14.66. There were no significant main effect of age and level of study on knowledge, attitude and sexual right protective behaviour. There was a significant interaction effect of age and level of study on sexual rights protective behaviour (F(2; 665) = 4.85, partial η2 = 0.01) in favour of adolescents in 100level from sexuality education group but not on knowledge and attitude. There was no significant interaction effect of treatment and level of study, as well as treatment and age on knowledge, attitude and sexual rights protective behaviour. The three-way interaction effect of treatment, age and level of study was also not significant. Sexuality education had the greatest impact on the knowledge, followed by attitude and sexual rights protective behaviour of female students in colleges of education, Anambra State. Sexuality education with emphasis on issues of sexual rights protective behaviour should be effectively implemented in the curriculum of colleges of education.