Abstract

Family dispute has been identified with deviant behaviors exhibited frequently and persistently by the adolescents in the classroom such as walking out on the teacher, noise making, sleeping in class, pinching, aggression, vandalism, pilfering, lies, truancy, tardiness, irresponsibility, cheating, immorality, alcoholism, use of drugs, cultism and examination malpractice (Boroffice,2004). This study assessed the analysis of aetiology diagnosis of the influence of family dispute and its interrelatedness to social dysfunction and academics performance of adolescents in a Nigerian Private University in Ogun State, Nigeria. This study was a cross-sectional survey. A total of 449 students were selected using multi-stage random sampling technique. A validated semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The respondents consisted of 53.9% females and 44.8% males and age group 19 and 22 formed the highest (59.7%). Majority (91.8%) of the respondents had the knowledge of family dispute and above an average (59%) of the respondent’s experienced dispute in their homes. Ninety-six percent agreed to the influence of the family dispute on social behaviors, while majority (91%) agreed that the situation affected academic performance which explained why only 1% of the respondents were on 4.5-5.0 Cumulative Grade Point Aggregate, while some (34%) were between 2.0 and 3.49 which significantly showed a decline in high academic performance. There was no significant difference in the history of family dispute compared across the gender of respondents (P. Value=0.296). While there was a significant difference in the history of family dispute compared across each of the categories of age, level of study, CGPA and academic performance. (P.value=0.000). The state of the family in terms of dispute goes a long way to affect the behavior and academics performance of the respondents. Hence, it was recommended that family dispute prevention programmes and policies should be formulated, targeted at individual’s relationships, communities and whole societies, and delivered in collaboration with different sectors of society in schools, workplaces, other institutions and criminal justice system.