Regina Anyungwu Achu, Wonder’Kachidi Nickaf Bartholomew’Zango & Cecilia Oluchi Odoh
Abstract
This study adopted an ex post facto research design to investigate the influence of caregivers’ marital status on their attitude towards childcare practice in early childhood care and education centres in Calabar Municipality of Cross River State, Nigeria. It was guided by three hypotheses. The population of this study comprised of 74 caregivers in 23 early childhood care and education centres in Calabar Municipality. All the 74 caregivers constituted the sample. A validated instrument entitled “Caregiver Attitudinal Scale (CAS)” was used for data collection. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability for the instrument was 0.76. Data collected were analysed using mean, standard deviation and ANOVA. The findings of the study showed that there was a significant influence of marital status on caregivers’ attitude towards feeding of children; there was no significant influence of marital status on caregivers’ attitude towards sleeping/rest of children; there was a significant influence of marital status on caregivers’ attitude towards learning and instruction. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that school proprietors and managers of caregiving centres should ensure that preference is given to married teachers in the recruitment of caregivers because they will understand how best to handle other peoples’ children.