Impact of emotional maturity on coping with stress among freshmen in South-Western Nigeria Universities

Abstract

It is well documented that Nigerian freshmen are not emotionally matured to handle stress associated with transition from secondary school to university. For effective intervention to enhance this competency among this group there is need to ascertain their level of emotional maturity. Ex post survey design was adopted to examine the impact of emotional maturity on coping with stress among freshmen in South-Western Nigerian universities. Simple random sampling technique was utilized in four stages to draw a sample size of 2236 respondents (Male=1021; Female=1215) with age range of 16-20 years (X =19.3; SD=7.2) from three categories of universities in South Western Nigeria (Federal, State and Private). Singh and Bhargava (1991) emotional maturity scale was the only source of data. Descriptive statistics was adopted to answer the first three research questions while t-test for independent samples and ANOVA were used for the fourth and fifth questions respectively. The result revealed that 63.2% of the 2236 freshmen were emotionally immatured to cope with stress. The females reported more emotional maturity than their male counterpart. Respondents between ages 22 and above reported more emotional maturity than their younger counterparts. This study has provided empirical evidence to suggest that freshmen are not emotionally matured to cope with challenges that are experienced in universities in Nigeria. The outcome of this study will sensitize the lecturers and school administration of the need to ameliorate some of the factors predisposing students to stress since the students level of maturity differs. Counselling psychologist should also institute stress management programme for freshmen in other to cushion the effects of stress associated with transition.