Abstract

The study investigated the effect of storytelling as therapeutic technique on psychosocial adjustment of primary school in Plateau State, Nigeria. The study was guided by three research questions and three objectives. Three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. A Quasi-experimental research design which included pre-test and post-test for both the experimental and the control group was adopted for the study. A sample of 85 primary five pupils was drawn from the population of 28,695 public primary school pupils across the 17 Local Government Areas of Plateau State using purposive sampling and simple random sampling techniques. The instrument titled: Psychosocial Adjustment Scale (PAS) developed by the researcher was used for data collection in this study. The instrument was validated by two experts from the Department of Guidance and Counselling, and the reliability index of 0.86 was obtained. A reliability coefficient of 0.87 was also obtained for the instrument after subjecting it Cronbach Alpha method. Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance at pre-test and posttest. The findings of the study revealed that there is significant difference in the pre-test and post-test scores of primary school primary school pupils in Plateau State who were exposed to storytelling as therapeutic technique and those who were not with respect to their psychosocial adjustment. However, there is no significant effect storytelling as therapeutic on psychosocial adjustment of primary school pupils in Plateau State, Nigeria based on ethnic group and gender. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that teachers should regularly adopt storytelling strategies during classroom instruction to enhance critical thinking, comprehension, and problem-solving skills in primary school pupils