The Ethiopian Journal Of Behavioural Studies

Refugees and Learning: A Study of Early Grade Mathematics Competency in Kebribeyah and Awbarre Refugee Schools, Ethiopia

Abraha Asfaw — 2023-12-30

Despite the consensus that early-grade mathematics is a gateway to success in school and life, evidence from refugee settings remains scarce to inform policy and practice. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the mathematics learning competency of children in Kabribeyah and Awbarre refugee schools in Ethiopia. Using a comparative survey design, the study involved 229 randomly selected grades 2 and 3 refugee and host community children in the sampled schools. Analysis of data collected using the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) tool showed that the mean scores of refugee and host community children amounted to 64.73% and 60.33%, respectively. Comparative analysis, however, revealed no statistically significant difference between these two groups (t= -1.90, df= 227, p= 0.059, 2-tailed). Nor had sex made a significant contribution in this regard. Accordingly, further research on a wider setting and predictive factors was recommended to influence policy and practice in early-grade mathematics learning in the context of refugee schools in Ethiopia.

Effectiveness of Interventions for Children with Intellectual Disabilities: A Systematic Review

Firafis Dereje — 2023-12-30

Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) encounter difficulties in several areas of functioning because of skill deficits (e.g., cognitive, adaptive, and social skills) and/or problem behaviors (e.g., hyperactivity and irritability). Many scholars have attempted to address these problems through various interventions. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature on commonly used interventions and their relative effectiveness. A search of three electronic databases (PsycINFO, Scopus and EMBASE) produced 87 articles published between 2004 and 2022. Seventeen peer-reviewed articles written in English from open-access journals met the inclusion criteria. The review identified a variety of interventions commonly employed to help improve the conditions of students with ID. These include play therapy, physical exercise, training, video modelling, computer-based cognitive training, peer tutoring, storytelling, portage early intervention training program, comprehensive reading intervention, and emotional intelligence-based intervention. The synthesis shows that play therapy was the most commonly employed intervention to address target behaviors in several areas (adaptive behavior, social skills, self-esteem, and problem behaviors). Besides, whereas the interventions produced small to large effects, only one produced very small or negligible effects. All the interventions that employed play therapy, in particular, had effects of large magnitude. Play therapy appears to be the most effective and widely applicable intervention to help improve skill deficits and reduce problem behaviors among students with ID. Finally, the paper suggests a direction for future research.

Effect of Parent-Mediated Pivotal Response Treatment in Improving Communication Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Dagmawi Alemnh — 2023-12-30

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of parent-mediated pivotal response treatment in improving the communication skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The research deployed an ABAB research design, ABAB was divided into 4 phases; three children with ASD who fulfilled the inclusionary criteria received pivotal response treatment from their parents. The instruments used for assessment included a social communication questionnaire, Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, and Vineland-3 Adaptive Behavioral Scale for communication. Visual analysis, raw score, v-scale score, and standard score comparison were used to examine the intervention's effect on each participant. The result indicates that parents successfully learned the procedures of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), and significantly improved the communication skills of their children with ASD. This research shows that when PRT intervention is substantial for children with ASD, the parents obtain intensive training to learn techniques and deliver interventions with fidelity. Training further allows parents to improve the skills of children with ASD.

Factor Structures of the Family Environment Scale (Amharic Version)

Mitiku Hambisa — 2023-12-30

Based on the fact that the family is a primary social institution which impacts the
development of various outcomes in its members and that the starting point for improving
family environment (FE) is availing a psychometrically sound tool that assesses this
environment, the present study sought to examine the 90 items Form R FES in the Ethiopian
context. At the outset, FES items were translated to the working language of Ethiopia (i.e.,
Amharic) by a team of experts. Then, the content and context relevance of the items were
evaluated by 8 experts. The items were further examined in a pilot study by gathering data
from a sample of 159 (77 male and 82 female) adolescents attending one government and
one private secondary school in Addis Ababa City. Lawshe’s procedures of examining
content validity and reliability analysis using Cronbach were used to analyze the data.
Depending on the results, 19 of the FES items were dropped, the other items were
improved, and eventually, 71 better quality items were made ready for the main study. The
main study was conducted on 477 adolescents (214 males and 255 females, 8 missing cases)
attending two government and one private secondary schools in Addis Ababa City.
Descriptive statistics, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor
Analysis (CFA) were used to analyze the data. Although further efforts are needed to
improve the psychometric qualities of the FES items in the Ethiopian context, 64 of the 90
items were found to be promising to assess the 10 subscales of the FES. Implications of the
findings are discussed.

Validation of the Emotional Intelligence Scale for University Instructors in Ethiopia

Bantigegn Tegegne — 2023-12-30

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a crucial skill in contemporary workplaces and education, but there needs to be more valid and reliable measures of emotional intelligence for university instructors in Ethiopia. This study aimed to validate the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) for this population, using a sample of 654 instructors from Ethiopian public universities who completed the EIS and gave informed consent. The data was split into two and subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results indicated that EIS consisted of 12 items on two factors: emotional self-awareness and self-regulation. The EIS had favorable psychometric properties such as high factor loadings, high measure of model fit indices, and internal consistency. All EIS items had content validity ratio (CVR) of above 0.75, which is the minimum criterion for retention. Thus, the EIS had a high content validity index of 0.928, demonstrating that its items were relevant and representative of the content domain. We assessed construct validity of the measurement model, and results showed that both convergent and discriminant validity were high, as the values exceeded the recommended thresholds of 0.5 and 0.75, respectively. The EIS also indicated a high level of emotional intelligence among instructors. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The Crisis of Social Research in Contemporary Society

Amare Asgedom — 2023-12-30

In this essay, I argue that social research, especially in developing countries, is in a deep crisis of low social support, poor quality, academic inattention, and commercialization. Particularly in Africa, research is a low-regarded social activity. Government and nongovernment organizations do not have R&D departments and budgets for adapting technologies such as modifying spare parts and/or producing knowledge to inform policies and practices. Governments do not have a research structure and consolidated state budget. Thus, they depend on foreign consultancy services to bridge the knowledge gap or import the spare parts instead of locally producing them. All that is said about research in developing countries is mere rhetoric and uncommitted. In the universities, in addition to the scantiness of courses, a research course is taught by untrained instructors. Anyone in the discipline teaches a research course within the discipline. The traditional social researcher does not exist in contemporary higher education. The traditional researcher is accepted into a community of researchers in the same discipline. Research activity also took the form of examining and re-examining, experimenting and re-experimenting, and repeating his/her efforts until conclusive results are obtained. At present, social research takes the form of collecting and disseminating information (or misinformation) that is not well-tested and examined. The main researchers are consultants (national or international) mainly attracted by money and selected by criteria and people that are incongruent with the purpose of research. In Ethiopia, most books are produced by politicians, theologians and businessmen (and women) teaching society, teachers and professors. I will focus on critiquing social research in light of its contribution to social development.