Research Focus:

 Guidance Counselling/School Counselling.

Biosketch:

Yusuf Florence Adeoti is a Professor of Guidance and Counselling who specialises in research on addressing learning and behavioural problems associated with students. Her intention has been to provide psychological support through counselling and utilization of psychotherapeutic principles and techniques in resolving students’ emotional, academic and behavioural challenges within and outside the school settings for the development of student’s maximum potential. She identified students’  specific challenges and discovered the appropriate counselling strategies to address the problems.  In her studies, she reported that a sizable number of students engaged in substance abuse and that peer modelling technique is very effective for changing undesirable behaviour among the students. She also researched the various possible family and home-related issues which are negatively impacting students’ behaviour in order to provide an in-depth understanding of these interactions and proffer sustainable solutions.

  Her research efforts have also focused on providing an enabling environment to facilitate students’ achievement, improve students’ behaviour and attendance, and help students socially. As a result, her research draws upon psychotherapeutic techniques and social skills, thereby assisting students to maximize their potential. She proposed an indigenous Nigerian folktale therapy as a counselling model for character training and behavioural change among school children. She equally proposed counselling strategies towards curbing crime and violent tendencies. She discovered the efficacy of play therapy in handling reading problems among primary school students and found that self-efficacy techniques are effective in reducing violent behavioural traits among students. She also identified the efficacy of relaxation techniques and reality therapy in reducing examination anxiety and identified counselling strategies that can be used to remediate the problem of sexual promiscuity among adolescent undergraduates. In one of her studies, she highlighted the causal factors and consequences of sexual harassment among students and ways to curb this vice.  She also outlined the influence of non-residential campus system on the behaviour of undergraduates and the role of school authorities and counsellors in addressing these difficulties.

Evidence from her studies has shown that most students from violence-prone families exhibit poor concentration in class. Also, her studies added significantly to the efforts to address the age-long problem of learner abuse and safety, as well as assertive training for learners on how to form a group to become agents of change to eradicate every form of abuse in schools. Interestingly, her research findings revealed that instructional games can be used to promote peace in the school and society at large.

She clearly identified the factors responsible for the stained glass ceiling in career advancement in tertiary institutions and recommended periodic assertiveness training and seminars for female academic staff to develop their self-confidence. She is currently working on environmental sustainability and values re-orientation as the panacea to gender violence and culture of silence among adolescents and the factors influencing mass emigration among youths.

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