Effect Of Cognitive Restructuring And Shaping Techniques In Handling Lateness To School Among Secondary School Students

Conclusions
From the discussions, lateness to school has been in existence and people have been contemplating and participating in the battle against the ugly behaviour. Today, the findings of this study have opened the doors of hope.
First and foremost, cognitive restructuring has been found to be effective in reducing both the number of days of lateness and magnitude of lateness of habitual latecomers. Also, shaping technique has been found to be very effective not only in reducing the number of days of lateness but also the magnitude of lateness of habitual latecomers. So there is hope now for our children.
Implications of the Study to Counselling
The findings of this study have shown that the guidance counsellors who were using non-working methods or techniques in combating late coming, could now make use of any of the two techniques.
Recommendations
Based    on    the    findings    of    this    study    and    their implications, the following recommendations were made: -
1.    Workshops, Conferences and Seminars should be organized by the State Education Commission for the serving guidance counsellors through the State chapter of Counselling Association of Nigeria on the usage of some common and basic counselling and other behaviour modification techniques.
2.    School guidance counsellors in the State should organize parents’ day for PTA members and apply cognitive restructuring on them to enable those of them who are responsible for their wards being late to school to rethink and come to the aid of these children.
3.    Physical punishment should be set aside by the school authorities on lateness to give room for more meaningful and purposeful psychological therapies.
4.    School principals and teachers should stop using the students who come early to school for cleaning and
tidying the compound.    Rather    they should start
using the latecomers.    This is    because literature
showed that some students who are late to school are trying to avoid the exercise.
5.    Teachers should be referring latecomers to the school guidance counsellors for diagnosis, dialogue and counselling since it was observed that majority of the latecomers do so because of circumstances beyond their control.
Limitations of the Study
The researcher faced some limitations in the course of this study. These include continuous keeping of the clients together throughout the period of treatment. Some of the clients were given more attention to make them attend all the sittings that lasted for four weeks.
It was difficult for the researcher to get the school guidance counsellors convinced to accept the job of keeping and collecting the records for the researcher. Some of them lamented that the work will make them come to school very early everyday. Some of them were paid to do the job before they could do it.
However, despite all these problems, ways were found out of them that is why this research was able to be completed; i.e. the researcher was able to complete the study. It was really not easy.
Suggestions for Further Studies
The following could be done based on the findings of this study:
1.    A replication of the study could be carried out in another State or even other Local Government Areas in the same State.
2.    The same study could be carried out in the area due to time lag.
3.    The same work could be carried out anywhere with a follow-up study for stability test after two months of posttest.
4.    The two or any of the techniques could be tried on other social, or discipline behaviours in the schools.