Author(s): Raji Sakiru Olarotimi
The study investigated anxiety and gender as correlates of undergraduates’ perception of personal space. The study aimed at examining the relationship between anxiety and undergraduates’ perception of personal space and also assessed gender differences in undergraduates’ perception of personal space. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. It study adopted a multi-stage sampling technique in the process of the selection and the collection of data. These sampling techniques include: the stratified sampling method and the simple random sampling. A total of 232 respondents were used for this research work; all randomly selected from the various faculties and departments of full-time undergraduate students of University of Lagos. A standardized questionnaire was used to measure respondent’s level of anxiety and perception of personal space. Two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance, using T-test and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient. The result of the first hypothesis shows a significant relationship between anxiety and undergraduates’ perception of personal space [r-cal=(0.432), r-tab=(0.139), P-val>(0.05)]. The result of the second hypothesis shows that there is a significant gender difference in undergraduates perception of personal space [t-cal=(11.492), ttab=( 1.645), P-val>(0.05)]. While male (n=106) have a mean score of 1.471 and a standard deviations of 0.733, the corresponding mean score of female (n=126) is 1.936 with a standard deviations of 0.961. The study concluded that, anxiety and gender are significantly correlated with undergraduates’ perception of personal space.
