A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF REASONING AND PSYCHOSOCIAL ABILITIES ON EARLY CHILDHOOD AND NON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION CHILDREN IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA: IMPLICATION FOR EDUCATIONAL EMPOWERMENT

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of early childhood education from the
perspective of educational psychology, on reasoning and psychosocial abilities
among children in Kaduna state, Nigeria. Two hypotheses aimed at establishing
the differences between reasoning and psychosocial abilities of Early Childhood
Education (ECE) and Non Early Childhood Education (NECE) pupils were
formulated to guide the study. The study was an ex-post factor in which two
instruments; Reasoning Ability and psychosocial Ability Tests were administered
to 393 pupils drawn from ten (10) schools in ten (10) local government areas of
the state, with a population of 248,801. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05
significant level using independent t-test.Results revealed that significant
difference exists between children who received early childhood education and
those who did not receive early childhood education in their reasoning abilities (t
= 5.758, p = 0.000). The study also shows that significant difference exists
between children who received early childhood education and those who did not
in their psychosocial abilities (t = 10.784, p = 0.000). Based on the findings, it is
recommended among others that early childhood education should be made
compulsory to all children.