Effect of Marital Counselling on Women‟s Attitude Towards Marital Stability

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of marital counselling on women’s attitude towards marital stability. The study adopted a pre-test post-test quasi experimental design. The sample consisted of 52 married women (academic and non-academic) staff of the Faculty of Education, University of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State of Nigeria. 26 each were assigned to experimental and control groups respectively. The participants were given a pre-test self-designed questionnaire titled ‘Women’s Attitude towards Marital Stability Questionnaire’ (WATMSQ). The experimental group was lectured for a period of four weeks on marital counselling programme. After four weeks, the post test programme was administered on both groups. The results were analyzed using mean scores and standard deviation for the research questions and t-test for the research hypothesis. Result of the hypothesis indicated that there was a significant difference between the experimental group’s mean scores which was higher than that of the control group. It showed that marital counselling had a significant effect on women’s attitude towards marital stability. Based on the findings, the implications for counselling include organizing seminars and workshops by counsellors to teach women skills that will enhance positive marital attitudes, adoption of marital counselling programmes by employers of labour to assist women maintain desirable marital attitudes in order to promote their input at work, amongst others.

Key Words: Marital counselling, Marital stability, Women, Nigeria