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Article History

Received: 8 June 2025

Accepted: 29 January 2026

First Online: 24 February 2026

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: Ethical approval and compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki: This study received ethical approval from the General/Human Research Ethics Committee (GHREC) of the University of the Free State (Ethics Clearance Number: UFS-HSD2023/0445), with approval granted on 15 September 2023. The research protocol, instruments, and procedures were reviewed and approved prior to data collection. In accordance with Article 23 of the Declaration of Helsinki, the authors undertook all reasonable steps to obtain local ethical approval prior to the commencement of data collection. Formal applications for ethical clearance were submitted to the States Ministry of Education through the Departments of Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS) between November 2023 and August 2024. These submissions included the complete study protocol, informed consent procedures, participant information sheets, and data protection and confidentiality measures. Multiple follow-up attempts were made through official correspondence and in-person visits; however, no formal ethics review outcome or written determination was issued. At the state level in Nigeria, the functionality or centralised research ethics committee with the mandate to review educational research within ministries of education are mostly ineffective at the time of visit. In practice, ethical oversight for such research is typically provided by higher education institutions, where responsibility for ethical review is conferred through institutional ethics committees, and in other instances, schools of postgraduate studies. Upon receipt of in stitutional ethical clearance, researchers are ordinarily issued a formal letter of introduction by their department or faculty for presentation to the schools in which data collection is intended, particularly where participants are competent adults. In the present study, all participating teachers were adults, capable of providing informed consent and did so voluntarily. Existing institutional ethics committees in Nigeria are primarily located within universities and are constituted mainly to review all research in volving human and animal subjects. Consequently, at the time of data collection, there was no clearly defined statutory pathway or operational mechanism for obtaining ministry-level ethics committee approval for school-based, minimal-risk educational research. This structural limitation is widely encountered in educational research conducted within public schools in Nigeria. In recognition of this leadership and governance context, ethical review and authorization were sought from the relevant educational authorities with delegated oversight responsibilities. Evidence of institutional ethical approval was presented to the head teachers of the participating teachers where available, who are formally responsible for safeguarding the welfare of staff and learners within their institutions, and who granted permission for the study to be conducted. The study involved minimal risk and non-invasive data collection and adhered to internationally acceptable ethical principles, including voluntary participation, informed consent, the right to withdraw without penalty, confidentiality, and anonymization of all data. All procedures were conducted in good faith and in compliance with the ethical principles articulated in the Declaration of Helsinki. The absence of approval from a formal state-level ethics committee reflects the lack of established and accessible ethics review infrastructure for non-clinical educational research within the Nigerian public space, rather than any omission or failure by the authors to seek appropriate ethical oversight.

: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection. Participants were fully informed about the purpose of the study, the voluntary nature participation, right to withdraw at any stage, the measures in place to ensure confidentiality and anonymity. Consent was obtained between 20 September and 5 November 2024 by the lead researcher and trained research assistants, in accordance with the approved ethical protocol.