Sleep Pattern and Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students

There have been studies that demonstrate the impact of sleep on both implicit and explicit memory. Of particular interest is that sleep has been shown to aid memory consolidation. This holds some implication for students, most of whom sleep for considerably very little amount of time, whereas they require sufficient amount of sleep to consolidate memory for material learned during the day. This study was therefore designed to investigate the possible impact of sleep on the academic achievement of undergraduate students. The study participants were 300 undergraduate students drawn from about twenty Department of a private university in Nigeria. 152 of the participants were female and the rest were male. The School Sleep Survey Habit Scale previously validated in Nigeria by one of the authors (IDO) was used to measure sleep habit, while academic performance was measured as self-reported grade. The result of Analysis of variance using SPSS XX showed a significant effect of Sleepiness on Academic Performance F (8, 211)=3.73, P<.01, and on Cumulative Grade Point Average, F (4, 190) = 3.82, P<.005. The study also showed that stimulant intake significantly impacted on Sleep habit. It was concluded that to enhance student's academic achievement counseling centres should endeavour to include sleep in their orientation programme for students. Besides, it would be necessary not to cram up the programme in such a manner that would rob the students of adequate rest and sleep

Performance Evaluation of Alaoji Thermal Power Plant

Electricity supply in Nigeria is epileptic and characterized by extensive outages. The new NIPP plants constructed have not improved the power situation in the country. The performance of Alaoji Thermal Power Station being one of the new NIPP plants with an installed capacity of 504.4MW (consisting of 4 X 126.1MW GE frame-9EA gas turbines) was studied. The study evaluated the performance of the plant for the period of January to December, 2016. The key performance indices involved were CF, PUF, LF, and AF. The required data for the analysis were obtained from the plant\u27s operational records and personal interview of the relevant staff. The results of the study are shown in Table 1 – 2 and figures 1 – 7 for running hours, energy generated, load factor, availability factor, shortfall in energy generation and plant use factor respectively. When the obtained values were weighed against the International best practice of 80% (LF), 50 - 70% (PUF) and 95% (AF). Shortfall in energy generation ranged from 1.4% to 90.5%, this is in excess of 5 – 10% average acceptable value. The Average PUF was 20.1%, indicating that the plant was grossly underutilized during the study period. The plant had a capacity factor ranging from 7.1 - 37.5% with an average CF of 20% for the review period. It was evident from the results that the plant performed poorly during the period under review. This was attributed to grid restrictions, insufficient gas supply and unavailability of spare parts for maintenance. It is suggested that the management should address the challenges so as to enhance the performance of the plant

Parental Marital Status as Predictor of Undergraduates’ Mental Health Status

Parenting plays a major role in the development and transformation of young adults. However, in recent years, the aptness of parents has been greatly reduced. Considering the increase of broken marriages and single parenting in Nigeria, young adults may be at risk of depreciating mental health due to unexpected emotional challenges with respect to the immediate family. This cross-sectional survey examined the mental health status of undergraduates as a function of parent’s marital status. One hundred and fifty-six undergraduates selected from three higher institutions responded to the Awaritefe Psychological Index (API), measuring mental health status. Two hypotheses were tested at p=0.05 level of significance and the results revealed that parent’s marital status did not significantly predict undergraduates’ mental health status (β=-0.076, t=0.951, p>0.05); however, the type of higher institution significantly predicted undergraduates’ mental health status (β=0.159, t= -1.985, p<0.05). Since this study revealed that the institution of learning is an effective predictor of undergraduates’ mental health status, it is recommended that institutions of learning should be made more academically conducive for undergraduates to foster better mental health

REVALIDATION OF SOME MEASURES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING USING A CROSS-SECTION OF NIGERIAN ADULTS

This study was conducted to establish initial validity and reliability of some measures of psychological wellbeing for use in Nigeria. Two hundred and five adult Nigerians were randomly selected from a community in Ota, Ogun State using a multi stage sampling method which culminated in odd and even number method of simple random sampling for participants’ selection. The participants were aged between 17 and 80 years ( X =29.22, SD=11.93). A battery of the short forms of six psychological wellbeing instruments in a paper was administers, viz: Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS), Gratitude Questionnaire – 6 (GQ-6), Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MILQ), Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R), and Worry Domain Questionnaire Short Form (WDQ-SF). A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted with adequate measures of Kaiser-Meyer-Okin and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity for each of the instrument and results showed factorial validity of each instrument based on its factor loadings and consistent with literature. A correlation coefficient revealed the Cronbach alpha to be as follows for the instruments: PGIS = .840; GQ- 6 = .316; MILQ = .825; SWLS = .718; LOT-R = .391; WDQ =.815. Each instrument showed initial validity for possible - use in Nigeria

FACTOR STRUCTURE, RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF TWO STATISTICAL ANXIETY MEASURES IN A SAMPLE OF NIGERIAN PSYCHOLOGY UNDERGRADUATES

The study seeks to establish the factor structure, the reliability and validity of Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) and the Statistics Anxiety Scale (SAS). STARS and SAS were examined among a sample of Psychology students in four Nigerian Universities comprising 110 males and 150 females with their age rangingfrom 16 to 29 years (M = 20.97; SD = 2.81). Factorial validation of the scales is in consonance with studies by other authors in other countries. Good scorer reliability was observed for both the STARS and the SAS. The Dieting belief Scale (DBS) was used to establish the divergent validity with .09 and -.10 for STARS and SAS respectively. A comparison of score across the sub-scale of STARS showed that mean scores were highest for worth of statistics and interpretation anxiety and lowest on fear of statistics teacher. For SAS, highest mean score was obtained for examination anxiety and lower for interpretation anxiety. Cronbach’s alpha statistics indicates relatively similar findings with those of initial findings of STARS and SAS ranging from .72 to .93

IMPACT OF FAMILY BOND ON THE ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT OF COLLEGE FRESHMEN

The study investigated the impact of family bond on the academic adjustment of college freshmen. The participants were 93 freshmen drawn randomly from the total of 739 students admitted to the college of engineering in the 2016/17 academic session. Fifty-one (i.e. 55 %) of the participants male, and forty-two (about 45 %) female. The participants ranged between 14 years and 19 years (X =16.10, SD = .92) in age. The mastery and health subscale of the Family Inventory of Resources for Management (FIRM) developed by McCubbin, Comeau & Harkins (1991) was used as index of family bond, while the Academic Adjustment Scale developed by Anderson, Guan and Koc (2016) was used to measure academic adjustment. The data obtained was subjected to a hierarchical multiple regression analysis, and a statistically significant inverse relationship was found between family bond and academic adjustment (β = -.36, t = -3.71, P<0.05), suggesting that students from cohesive families evinced poorer academic adjustment. There also was a significant interaction between family bond and gender (β = -.35, t = -3.55, P<0.05) in predicting academic adjustment. Additionally, type of family residence, whether family residence was owned or rented, also predicted academic adjustment (β = -.201, t = -2.07, P< 0.05) when age was taken into consideration. The findings suggest the need to provide on-campus environment that offer care and support to the freshman

Terrorism Inclination and Self-Esteem Level of Secondary School Students in Nigeria

Incidences of terrorism and proclivity or penchant towards such acts has necessitated the need to examine if secondary school students are inclined towards terrorism, the gender that is most inclined to terrorist tendencies and whether self-esteem issues contribute to terrorism inclination. This is to assist in initiating general and gender specific educational campaign among secondary school students aimed at curbing terrorism in Nigeria. This study aimed to identify the specific gender which is more predisposed to terrorism and to manifesting self-esteem issues among secondary school students. In order to investigate gender differences in terrorism inclination and self-esteem issues among secondary school students in Lagos, 590 students from 8 secondary schools in Lagos State were administered the 10 item Terrorism Inclination Scale by Agbo and Ezeuduji (2010) and the Rosenberg‘s selfesteem scale. The participants consisted of 249 males and 341 females aged 9 to 23 years (M = 14.44, SD = 1.58) in Junior and Senior Secondary Schools. The result of a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) used to analyse gender differences in terrorism inclination and self-esteem issues among secondary school students in Nigeria showed a significantinfluence of gender in terrorism inclination among secondary school students, F (2, 587) = 4.876, p<= 0.01; Wilks‘ Lambda = 0.984, partial η2 =0.02 but there was no gender difference in self-esteem level of secondary school students. ale secondary school students reported both higher terrorism inclination (X = 24.56, SD = 8.11) and higher level of selfesteem (X = 21.05, SD = 3.36) than female secondary school students. This study has clearly shown the existence of terrorism proclivity among secondary school students irrespective of their self-esteem level. The need for educators to focus on secondary school students in order to dissuade them from sympathising with terrorists so as to curb the spate of terrorism in Nigeria was discussed

Assessment of Health-related Locus of Control among Undergraduates Substance Users and Non-Users

- Introduction: Locus of control is one of the most extensively investigated psychological constructs in literature and the purpose of the study was to assess health-related locus of control among undergraduate’s substance users and non-users. Methods: Data from 574 students between ages 18 and 27 (n= 574, mean=21.15 (+/- 1.8years) was collected from five tertiary institutions in AdoOdo-Ota LGA, Nigeria. An adapted and validatedversion of the World Health Organization (WHO) questionnaire on drug use surveys and the multidimensional health locus of control (MHLC) which was designed to measure the degree to which an individual feels they are in control of their ownhealth were employed for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferentialstatistics.Three research hypotheses were raised and tested. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The preliminary result shows that there is no significant difference in the health-related locus of control between substance users and non-users, and between heavy and occasional drinkers, but there exist significant differences based on gender. Conclusion: This article discusses the implications of these findings especially in the area of health education and the use of health locus of control measures Adekeye, Olujide A.b,c , Agoha, Ben C.a , Adeusi, Sussan O.b , Igbokwe, David O.a , Olowookere, Elizabeth I.a , Elegbeleye, Ayo O.a and Sholarin, Muyiwa A.

Leadership and Entrepreneurship: Preliminary Validation of Covenant Entrepreneurial Effectiveness Scale

Attaining and maintaining leadership in any field of human endeavour requires regular valid measurement and evaluation. The latter is the quest of Psychometrics. The core objective of this study, therefore, was to develop and attempt preliminary validation of the Covenant Entrepreneurial Effectiveness Scale [CEES], a monitoring device for entrepreneurs. The CEES was based on Schumpeter’s theory of Innovation in entrepreneurship and Leibenstein’s theory of entrepreneurship, combined with current observations of SMEs in a developing economy. The core research questions were: What are the internal consistency reliabilities of the CEES? What are the discriminant validity indices of the CEES? One hundred and ninety-four (194) small scale entrepreneurs were randomly sampled from Ado-Odo Ota local government area in Ogun State, Nigeria. There were 128 males and 66 females with age ranging from 20-65 years. The mean and standard deviation of their age were 38.05 and 8.56 respectively. The responses to the CEES were analysed with Cronbach alpha, Guttman Split-half and Spearman-Brown coefficients and independent student t-test. The results showed that the CEES has significant internal consistency reliability (0.755), splithalf reliability (0.742) and discriminant validities for entrepreneurs who were differentiated on Gender (t=2.75, p=0.007), Age (t=2.003, p=0.048), House (t=5.68, p=0.0) Car (5.89, p=0.0) and Annual Profit (t=3.432, p=0.001). It was recommended that the CEES be administered on SMEs in other parts of the globe to further ascertain its reliability and validity for regular monitoring and evaluation, to catalyse entrepreneurial leadership