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Background/Objective: The importance of critical thinking in improving treatment practices in, for instance, the nursing profession, cannot be overemphasized. Despite this importance, empirical studies have shown that helping strategies to train learners on critical thinking disposition are needed. Given this knowledge gap, this study investigated the impacts of cognitive-behavioral reflective training for improving the critical thinking disposition of nursing students. Method: Of all the students screened, a total of 167 participants were assigned to the treatment group and waitlisted control group. A researchers-developed training program aimed at improving critical thinking disposition was delivered in English language by therapists. Results: Repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference between the critical thinking disposition of nursing students in the treatment and control groups as measured by CTDI-M at the posttest. At the posttreatment and follow-up measures, there were consistently improved impacts of CBRT on the critical thinking disposition of nursing students in Nigeria as measured by CTDI-M. Conclusion: Following the results, we concluded that cognitive-behavioral reflective training was beneficial and had sustained improvement in enhancing the critical thinking disposition of nursing students.

This study examined the effect of the constructivist method on junior secondary school students’ achievement in poetry in Nigeria. Sixty junior secondary class-two students participated in the study. The instrument used was a questionnaire developed by the researchers. The experiment consisted of 12 weeks of full intervention and 6 weeks of follow-up meetings. The study used repeated-measures ANOVA to see the achievement level in poetry of each participant across control and treatment groups post intervention. Results show a significant effect for the constructivist method on achievement in poetry among students in the treatment group compared to the control group. They also show that the effect of the constructivist method on students’ achievement in poetry is not determined by gender. The implications for research and practice are discussed in accordance with these outcomes. The researchers conclude by emphasizing the importance of a follow-up study in the Nigerian context that would make the teaching method more robust through the use of the constructivist method for high academic achievement and improved school counseling.

The study investigated Academic and Environmental Stress as Predictors of Academic Achievement of Secondary School Students in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria. The need for the study came as a result of increasing rate of poor academic achievement of secondary school students in the study area to which the researchers sought to find solutions. It was guided by two research questions and two corresponding null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. The research design used for the study was correlation survey design. The population of the study comprised the entire four hundred and sixty secondary school students identify from cumulative record folder of SSII students who have performed poor in English Language and Mathematics in the study area. The entire population of 460 students were used as sample. In this case, there was no sample. This is because the number can be managed. The instrument for data collection were three sets of questionnaire titled “Academic Stress Questionnaire (ASQ)”, “Environmental Stress Questionnaire (ESQ)”; and Academic Achievement Proforma (AAP)”. ASQ and ESQ were properly validated by experts in test development and the internal consistency reliability indices of the items estimated at 0.83 and 0.85 respectively using cronbach alpha method. The data collected were analyzed using coefficient of determination (R2) for research questions, while linear regression was used in testing the hypotheses at <0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that academic stress predicts positively academic achievement of secondary school students. Also, the study found out that environmental stress predicts positively academic achievement of students. The findings also revealed that there is a significant relationship between academic stress and academic achievement of SSII students in Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that secondary school guidance counsellors should organize seminars on academic and environmental stress on academic achievement of students to help improve academic achievement of students.