CLOTHING CARE AND MAINTENANCE PRACTICES AMONG BOARDING SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

This study focused on clothing care and maintenance practices of boarding students in Anambra state. Specifically, the study identified various clothing care and maintenance practices among boarding secondary school students in Anambra State. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research. The population comprised 20,114 respondents, multi-stage sampling technique was used to get a sample size of 329 respondents consisting of 298 students (123 male and 175 female students) and 31 teachers (8 house masters, 12 house mistresses and 11 Home Economics teachers). Structured questionnaire which was validated by three experts was used for data collection.  The reliability of the instrument was determined using Crombach Alpha which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.87. Data were analysed using mean and standard deviation. A mean of 2.50 was used as a cut off mean. The results of the study revealed that washing clothing items whenever it is dirty, removing stains as soon as it is noticed among others are clothing care and maintenance practices by boarding school students.  The study recommended that efforts should be made by teachers and house masters/mistresses to inculcate the skills of proper clothing care and maintenance in boarding students to improve their self-hygiene and this will facilitate their adoption of proper ways of clothing care and maintenance practices.