Efficacy of Play Therapy Technique in Overcoming School Refusal Behaviour among Primary School Pupils in Zaria Metropolis Kaduna State, Nigeria

The study investigated the efficacy of play therapy on school refusal behaviour among primary school pupils in Zaria metropolis Kaduna state Nigeria. The study employed quasi- experimental pre-test post –test group design, in which selected participants were assigned to experimental groups. The population of the study consisted of two hundred and eighty (280), male and female between the ages of (10-11) years, primary four (4) pupils. Stratified sampling technique was used to select one school from two local government education authority (LGEA); Purposive sampling technique was used for selecting the participants for the study. Eighty 80 pupils identified with the characteristics of school refusal behaviour from their class registers were selected to participate in the study. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study and were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. Independent t- test statistics was used for testing the hypotheses. Results from data analysis revealed that there is significance effect in the mean difference of 31.87 between the pre-test and post –test score for the treatment group showed hence that there is positive gain in the treatment (t-1.109, P=0.002). Hypothesis two was rejected because of a result of; (t=0.515, P=0.020). Hence there is significant efficacy of male and female among primary school pupils expose to treatment on school refusal behaviour using mean score obtain in post-test. It was recommended that school psychologists, counsellors and teachers should be encouraged to use Play Therapy Technique in re-addressing School Refusal Behaviour among primary school pupils. Male and female pupils should be given equal opportunity and exposure to the techniques in re-addressing school refusal behaviour in schools, this in a bid to improving the attendance and enhanced learning