Extent of Teachers’ Use of Coping Skills Instructions to Enhance Low-Achieving Students’ Ability to Manage Cognitive Learning Tasks Difficulties in Secondary Schools in Anambra State, Nigeria

The study investigated the extent of teachers’ use of coping skills instructions to enhance low- achievers’ ability to manage cognitive learning tasks difficulties for sustainable universal basic education programme on the premise that coping skills problems are related to teachers having limited expertise in representing the ideas themselves (Allen & Dlugokinski, 1992). Two hundred Junior Secondary School 11 low achievers made up of 75 male and 125 female low achievers were sampled from 10 secondary schools in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State. Low achievers were identified by their teachers. Researchers-developed 20-item questionnaire validated by experts was used to elicit information from the subjects. Three research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study. Research questions were answered using mean and the null hypothesis was tested with analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. Major findings indicated that, teachers to a greater extent instruct low achievers on the three classes of coping strategies. It was also found that significant differences exist on the extent of instructions in the three strategies. Further analysis with the Scheffe test to ascertain the direction of statistic difference, revealed that differences exist among direct action strategy versus emotion-focused coping strategies, and emotion-focused strategies versus seeking-social- support coping strategies. No significant difference was found to exist between direct action coping strategies and seeking-social-support coping strategies. Recommendations were made.