Efficacy of Talk Therapy on Academic Depression Behaviour of Students Enrolled in Counselling, Psychology and Sociology of Education (CPSE)

Abstract

This paper assessed the efficacy of talk therapy programme on the reduction of undergraduate students’ depression behavior. Pre-test post-test randomized control trial experimental design was adopted by the researchers for the study. Fifty-two (52) counselling, psychology and sociology of education undergraduate students who were drawn through proportionate stratified random sampling technique constituted the sample for the study. The students were randomly assigned to experimental (30) and control (22) groups. Depression Assessment Scale for Students (DASS) and Academic Depression Behaviour Scale (ADBS) were used for data collection. DASS and ADBS were duly validated by experts in test development and the internal consistency reliability index of the items estimated as 0.82 and 0.84 respectively using Cronbach Alpha method. Before the commencement of the testing and treatment programme, the researchers assured the participants of confidentiality of interactions and personal information as they work together in self-disclosure. After that, pretreatment assessment (pre-test) was conducted using the DASS and ADBS in order to collect baseline data (Time 1). After that, the experimental group was exposed to 90 minutes of the talk therapy (TT) programme twice a week for a period of 6 weeks. The treatment took place May and June, 2022. Post-test (Time 2) assessment was conducted one week after the last treatment session. Besides, a follow-up assessment was conducted after two months of the treatment (Time 3). Data collected were analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance. The findings of the study revealed that the efficacy of talk therapy on the reduction of depression behavior among counselling, psychology, sociology of education undergraduate students was significant at post-test and follow-up measures. One of the implications of the findings is that if undergraduate students are not properly counselled, their depression behavior will continue to increase. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that Federal Government or relevant authorities should provide enough guidance counselors in the various institutions of higher learning who will assist in the counselling of the students on dangers of depression using talk therapy.