GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

This study investigated the extent to which domestic violence, peer group influence predicts aggressive behaviour among secondary schools in Rivers State. Five research questions and five corresponding hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted correlational research design. The population of the study consisted of 37,748 SSII students in the 276 public senior secondary schools in Rivers State. The sample size of this study comprised 420 SSII students. Purposive sampling technique was adopted for the study. Three instruments titled â€œDomestic Violence Scale” (DVS), “Peer Group Influence Scale” (PGIS) and “Aggressive Behaviour Scale” (ABS) was used for data collection. The instruments were validated based on face and content validities by three experts; one in guidance and counselling and two others in measurement and evaluation. Cronbach Alpha reliability statistics was used to compute the general reliability coefficients of (DVS) to be 0.88, (PGIS) to be 0.89 and (ABS) to be 0.79. The researchers engaged the services of two research assistants (teachers) in each school who were properly trained on what to do. Simple regression was used to answer research question 1-5 and their corresponding hypotheses was also tested at 0.05 Alpha level of significance. It was found that; emotional, physical, sexual, economic violence, peer group influence independently predicted aggressive behaviour of secondary school students. Based on the findings of the study conclusion, recommendations and implications for counselling were made.