Agency as a correlate of the self-development of adolescents in Cameroon Universities

The study investigated agency as a correlate of the self-development of adolescents in Cameroon Universities. Indicators of agency such as forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness, self-esteem and self-efficacy were tested against self-development of adolescents in Cameroon Universities. The survey research design was used and the sample was made up of 158 males and 224 female adolescent students whom were sampled across four Faculties of the University of Bamenda. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire. The sampling technique that was used was purposive sampling technique that was used to meet with the population of interest. As far data processing was concerned, a pre-designed EpiData Version 3.1 (EpiData Association, Odense Denmark, 2008). Database which has in-built consistency and validation checks was used to enter the data. For further consistency, data range and validation checks were also performed in SPSS version 21.0 (IBM Inc, 2012) to identify invalid codes. Reliability test was performed to assess the internal consistency of responses using Cronbach Alpha reliability analysis. Chi-square was used to compare proportion for significance difference.Multiple response analysis were used to aggregate responses within conceptual components. Data collected from the field were subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistics. For the descriptive data, frequency distribution tables and charts were used to present and describe the data obtained. To verify the hypothesis, tables were used using Spearman’s rho correlation. The findings indicated that adolescents were endowed with forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness, self-esteem, and self-efficacy and that there was a significant relationship between these variables and the alternative hypothesis were all retained. For descriptive data, adolescents were endowed with forethought with a proportion of 91.5%, self-reactiveness 90%, self-reflectiveness 82.5%, self-esteem 91%, and self-efficacy 91%.The findings also indicated that there was a significant relationship between agency and the self-development of adolescents in Cameroon Universities.From the results obtained among the five indicators of agency, the indicator self-esteem was found to be the highest to predict the self-development of adolescents with spearman’s rho r=0.604 (p=0.000) followed by self-efficacy with spearman’s rho r=0.568 (p=0.000) next by, self-reflectiveness with spearman’s rho r=0.493 (p=0.000), followed by self-reactiveness with spearman’s rho r=0.481 (p=0.00) and finally, forethought with spearman’s rho r=0.434 (p=0.000). The findings indicated that agency therefore determines the self-development of adolescents in Cameroon Universities. Adolescents are therefore endowed with forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness, self-esteem, and self-efficacy that facilitated their self-development. Therefore, adolescents could be reported to have hope, self-motivation, self-worth that can enrich their human potentials and capabilities for a better future.