Self-Awareness and Academic Stress as Predictors of Academic Adjustment among Secondary School Students in Delta Central Senatorial District

The purpose of this study as to investigate self-awareness and academic stress as predictors of academic adjustment among secondary school students in Delta Central Senatorial District. The study adopted correlational survey design. The target population of the study consists of 15,452 (6,898 males and 8,554 females) students from one hundred and eighty (180) public Secondary Schools both in rural and urban areas in Delta Central Senatorial District of Delta State. The sample of this study consists of 1,545 (855 female and 690 male) respondents selected using multi-stage sampling procedure. The instrument used in this study is a questionnaire constructed by the researcher and is titled “Self-Awareness, Academic Stress and Academic Adjustment Scale (SAAS). The reliability of the instrument was established by using Cronbach alpha for estimating its internal consistency. This yielded an alpha value of 0.75 for self-awareness; 0.85 for Academic Stress and 0.67 for Academic Adjustment. Correlation and Coefficient of determination was used in answering the research questions, while regression statistics was used in testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. It was found that there is no significant relationship between self-awareness and academic adjustment among secondary school students. it was also found that there is significant relationship between academic stress and academic adjustment among secondary school students. Based on these findings it is recommended that secondary school students should develop their self-awareness skills and academic stress management for effective academic adjustment to their academic environment and needs. School counsellors should develop programmes like seminars, workshops and therapeutic approaches to help students effectively management their academic demand.