DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL EVALUATIONAND COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY

The study investigated Efficacy of Competitive Memory Training and NarrativeTherapy on Self Esteem among Primary School Pupils in Edo State. Specifically, the studyexamined the interaction effect of treatment by Sex and Parents’ Socio-Economic Statusofthe self-esteem of pupils in Edo State. The study was guided by 7 research questions and7corresponding hypotheses which were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design. The population of this studyconsisted of 19,690 primary five (5) pupils in 94 public primary schools in Ovia NorthEast Local Government Area of Edo State. The sample size of 77 pupils was selected usingthemultistage sampling technique. The instrument used for the study is a combined Self-EsteemScale (SES) by Rosenberg (1965) and Hare (1975) which was adapted by the researcher. The instrument was validated by three experts in the Department of Educational Evaluation and Counselling Psychology, University of Benin. Cronbach alpha Statistics was used to establish internal consistency of the items and it yielded a coefficient of 0.79. The researcher and other research assistants administered the instruments through direct delivery method. Data collected in this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Paired sample t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to test the Hypotheses. Findings from the study showed that Narrative Therapy (NT) was significantly effective in improving pupils' self-esteem, compared to both the Competitive Memory Training (CMT) and control groups. In contrast, Competitive Memory Training (CMT) didnot yield a statistically significant improvement in pupils' self-esteem, indicating limited efficacy in this psychological domain. Furthermore, the analysis found no significant interaction effects of treatment by sex and by parents’ SES, or by the combination of sex and parents’ SES, implying that the outcomes of the interventions were consistent across demographic lines. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that schools should integrate Narrative Therapy into counselling programmes for training school counsellors and psychologists. Also, counsellors in primary schools should conduct more review on the competitive memory training protocol to identify weaknesses such as limited session frequency or overly frequency.