EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TRAINING AND SELFEFFICACY TECHNIQUE ON PRE-RETIREMENT ANXIETY OF PUBLIC SERVANTS IN IBADAN, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Retirement is voluntary or involuntary withdrawal from active work role. It poses emotional problem to several people who are about to retire and even those who are still having many years to spend in service. Pre-retirement anxiety could, therefore, constitute psychological problems which, more often than not, brings about apprehension, maladjustment and social tensions. Past studies on retirement focused on mental health and influence of sociological factors, only few studies are available on pre-retirement anxiety. This study, therefore, investigated effects of Emotional Intelligence Training (EIT) and Self-efficacy Technique (SET) on pre-retirement anxiety of public servants in Ibadan, Nigeria.

A pre-test, post-test, control group quasi-experimental design with a 3x2x2 factorial matrix was used for the study. There were two treatment conditions (EIT and SET) and a control group. The moderator variables were gender and self-esteem. Multistage and stratified sampling techniques were used to select 103 Oyo State public servants (54 males and 49 females) who participated in the study. The participants were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. Sarason‟s General Anxiety Scale (=0.81) and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (=0.77) were employed to collect data. The experimental groups were exposed to eight weeks training sessions, while participants in the control group received no training. Nine hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using Analysis of Covariance.

There was significant difference in the anxiety of pre-retirees exposed to treatment and control groups (F (2, 97) =38.77; P