PARENTAL AUTHORITATIVE BEHAVIOUR AS CORRELATES OF ADOLESCENT SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ENUGU STATE

The main purpose of the study was to determine the correlates of parental authoritative behaviour and adolescents’ sexual behaviour among secondary school students in Enugu State. One research question and one null hypothesis were formulated and tested at .05 level of significance. Correlational research design was adopted for this study. The population for the study comprised all the 112,481 secondary school students in the 297 public secondary schools in Enugu State, while the sample size for this study was 397 public secondary school students in Enugu State. The researcher used proportionate stratified random sampling technique to draw 5% of male and female secondary school students from the 297 public secondary schools in Enugu State. A self-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three research experts. The reliability coefficient stood at 0.69, indicating that the instrument is reliable and suitable for the study. The instrument was administered to the 397 respondents using direct delivery and retrieval method. However, out of the 397 administered copies of the instrument only 318 copies were correctly retrieved. Mean and standard deviation was employed in answering the research question, while t-test at 0.05 level of significance was used to test the null hypotheses formulated for the study. On the decision rule, real limit of the numbers was applied. The null hypothesis will not be rejected when the significant level was less than .05 and will be rejected when the significant level was equal or more than .05 level of significance. From the result of the findings, it was concluded that parental authoritative behaviour correlates with adolescents’ sexual behaviour of secondary school students in Enugu State. Comparison of the male and female students indicated that there is no significant difference in the mean response scores of male and female students on the extent to which parental authoritative behaviour correlates with adolescents’ sexual behaviour among secondary school students in Enugu State. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that Parental authoritative behaviour should be encouraged and adopted for positive adolescents’ sexual behaviour among secondary school students’ in Enugu State