Students' attitudes towards social, moral and religious issues: a survey of senior high schools in the Brong Ahafo Region, Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out the attitudes of senior high school students in the Brong Ahafo region towards social, moral and religious issues. It was also hypothesised that gender, subjects studied, type of school, environment, age, ethnicity and religious affiliation of students have an effect and predict their attitudes towards social, moral and religious issues. The study adopted the descriptive cross-sectional survey as a design. Participants for the study were 900 students from 20 senior high schools in the region. They were selected using the cluster and simple random sampling techniques. A questionnaire (Mensah's altitude scale for measuring social, moral and religious issues) with a Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.893 was used for data collection. Data collected were analysed with the; help of SPSS version 20. Descriptive and inferential statistical tools like frequency counts, percentages, means and standard deviation, Factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression were used for data analysis. It was found that students in senior high schools in the Brong Ahafo region had positive attitudes towards social, moral and religious issues. Also, it was found that students' demographic characteristics have significant influence and predict their attitudes towards social, moral and religious issues. Based on these findings, it was recommended that Brong Ahafo branch of Ghana Education Service endeavour to intensify education on social, moral and religious issues through subjects like citizenship education and religious and moral education.