EFFECT OF PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL COUNSELLING ON EMOTIONALREGULATION AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS WHO HAVEEXPERIENCED BULLYING IN KEBBI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Bullying poses serious emotional risks to adolescents, particularly in under-resourcededucational environments. This study investigated the effectiveness of psychoeducationalcounselling on emotional regulation among secondary school students in Kebbi State,Nigeria. Grounded in Gross’s Process Model of Emotion Regulation and CognitiveBehavioural Theory, the study employed a quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test controlgroup design. Sixty students (aged 12–17) who had experienced bullying were purposivelyselected and randomly assigned to either an experimental group (n = 30) that received aneight-session psychoeducational counselling programme or a control group (n = 30) thatreceived no intervention. Emotional regulation was assessed using the Emotion RegulationQuestionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA), and the data were analysed usingpaired and independent-samples t-tests. Results showed a significant improvement inemotional regulation scores for the experimental group, increasing from a pre-test meanof 62.00 (SD = 1.44) to a post-test mean of 77.00 (SD = 1.44), t(29) = –42.43, p < .001.The control group showed only a marginal increase (M = 62.43 to M = 64.00), t(29) = –1.42, p > .05. Post-test comparisons between groups confirmed a significant treatmenteffect, t(58) = 42.87, p < .001. No gender differences were found, t(28) = 0.40, p = .420.These findings support the efficacy of psychoeducational counselling for enhancingemotional regulation in adolescents affected by bullying, and highlight its feasibility inlow-resource, culturally conservative contexts such as northern Nigeria.Key words: psychoeducational counselling, emotional regulation, bullying