Social media/networks have proven to improve learning and overall students’ progress in their programs when properly used. However, social media have been strongly criticized for its strong negative impacts on students’ performance in their studies. This study, therefore, explored the regulatory policy options to effectively manage students’ use of social media/networks in Nigerian universities. The study used a mixed-method design for the collection of appropriate data to address the objectives. The population of the study include all the undergraduate students in Nigerian universities and seven top administrative staff of the universities who often get involved in policy dialogue, policy crafting and policy implementation. To collect both quantitative and qualitative data, both online and off-line open-ended interviews were conducted for undergraduate students of which 498 valid responses were retrieved. For the seven top university administrative staff, open-ended semi-structured interviews were conducted in their offices during fieldwork for data collection. The validity and trustworthiness of the instruments for quantitative and qualitative data collection respectively were determined by three experts. The reliability of the instrument measured using Cronbach’s alpha is 0.87. The collected qualitative data which had been recorded were transcribed and analyzed using text analysis and frequency query cloud with the help of Atlas.ti. Findings from analyzed data show the major challenges confronting students in the use of social media, abuses of social media, and was also found that there are no existing regulations or policies controlling the use of social media/networks in Nigerian universities. The study recommended the enactment of social media regulatory policies in Nigerian universities.

Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) emerged in December 2019, causing significant changes in people's social lives and other human activities. The outbreak halted educational activities throughout the world. The Nigerian experience was unique in that most people were skeptical about the pandemic's existence. This practice contributed to the Nigerian people's fear of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, in Nigeria, there has never been a validated or established Covid-19 phobia scale, necessitating this study. This study was a pure validation study on COVID-19 phobia scale (C19PS). The study area was south-east states and a sample of 386 preschool practitioners in urban and rural communities of South East States, Nigeria participated in the study. The eligibility criteria include being a preschool teacher and demonstrating signs of COVID-19 phobia. The validation of the C19PS was done by subjecting the data gathered to principal axis factoring analysis with varimax rotation. The model fit for the data was tested using root mean square error of approximation and comparative fit index. It was found that the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of .845 for the measure of the adequacy of the sample size. There was also a significant Bartlett's test of sphericity ( P < .05). This implies that the correlation matrix for the C19PS is not an identity matrix. It was revealed that C19PS had good overall reliability (α = .896) and model fit (Root mean square error of approximation = .042, comparative fit index = .943) in a sample of Nigerian preschool practitioners. As a result, C19PS was recommended as a trustworthy tool for identifying persons who suffer from COVID-19 phobia.

Background: The need to investigate depression among disadvantaged groups motivated this study. This study investigated the impacts of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) on depressive symptoms in schoolchildren with atypical behaviors in Enugu State Nigeria.Method: A group randomized controlled design was used to assign 37 schoolchildren to the intervention group and 37 schoolchildren to the waitlisted control group. These people were evaluated at three times (pretest, post-test, and later test) using a dependent measure. The outcome demonstrated that there was no discernible difference between the participants in the treatment group and those in the waitlisted control group at the time of the pretest. The post-treatment test results revealed a considerable improvement among participants as a result of REBT therapy.Results: The later test result revealed that the treatment's significant improvement was maintained in favor of the REBT group. The outcome of REBT treatment was not moderated due to location. The data showed a significant interaction impact on participants' depression levels in relation to the interaction between groups and gender during therapy. Conclusion:Following the outcomes, we concluded that REBT is a long-term efficacious intervention for treating depressive symptoms in schoolchildren with atypical behaviors in Enugu State Nigeria regardless of location and gender.Abbreviations: n = number of participants, REBT = rational emotive behavior therapy, sig = associated probability, χ 2 = chisquare, η 2 p = partial eta square.

Background/Objective: Previous research efforts have shown the need for improvement of knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Hence, the study at hand was designed to investigate the effect of using educational digital storytelling intervention to satisfy this need of English Language children in rural areas in Nigeria. Method: The study adopted a randomized control design involving a pretest, post-test, and follow-up measures. Eight-four children (n = 84) took part in the study. The HIV Knowledge Questionnaire (HIV-KQ-18) and the Perceived Risk of HIV Scale (PRHS ) were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using t test statistics. Result: The educational digital storytelling intervention in appreciably improved knowledge and perception of English language children in rural areas who participated in the intervention concerning HIV/AIDS compared with their peers in the no-intervention control group. The improvement in knowledge and perception gained was also maintained throughout the follow-up evaluation period. Conclusion: The present study showed that the use of educational digital storytelling could improve knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Educational digital storytelling intervention effectively improved knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among children in rural areas. In return, we recommend that rural sociologists, counselors, language and communication experts, child educators, and other professionals involved in public health especially, as it concerns children be skilled in the use and application of educational digital storytelling intervention procedures to facilitate the move towards adopting the method in their professional practices.

This study was carried out to investigate teachers&rsquo; perceived communication instructional skill for improving teaching in Enugu State, Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The sample size of the study is 1,196 teachers. Multistage sampling technique was used in the selection of the sample size. The instrument used for data collection was the Teachers&rsquo; Perceived Communication Instructional Skills Questionnaire (TPCISQ). To ensure the reliability of the instrument, a trial test was conducted by administering 30 copies of the questionnaire to 30 public primary school teachers in Awka, Anambra State, which is outside the study area. Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of the items. Result of the analysis yielded an overall coefficients value of 0.87. The data collected in the study were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Based on the findings of the study, it was revealed that teachers need the following communication skills: listening to the pupils attentively when they ask questions; giving proper feedback to the questions raised by the pupils; repeating instructions orally or in writing and so on.