American Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

David Trafimow1 

People commit the “only game in town fallacy” when they insist that the lack of accessible alternative explanations forces acceptance of whatever hypothesis is on the table. This fallacy is familiar to philosophers because it often comes up in the context of arguments about the existence of God. However researchers in psychology often commit the fallacy too. Is it acceptable to commit the fallacy in the context of psychology hypotheses even if it is not in the context of God? I provide several possible answers to this question, and also discuss an augmented version of the fallacy.  

Prof. Tom Olali1

My first and most enduring lessons on per formative events came from the maulidi festival of the Lamu archipelago, Kenya. Bands of Swahili passed year after year before my eyes during this festival to mark the anniversary of the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. In 2014, I came to Korea and in November of the same year, I managed to attend the Pyeongtaek nongak(also known as pungmul), a widely-transmitted traditional performance format blending music, dance and theatre. This paper was initiated to compare the performance of the hamziyyah during the maulidi festival in the Lamu archipelago, Kenya and the nongak, a traditional Korean music performed by farmers in the Republic of Korea. I give particular attention to the role they play during the festivals and as a medium which is employed to reinforce values of the Swahili people of the Lamu archipelago and that of Korean people respectively. This paper illustrates how the hamziyyah and the nongak are performed during the Lamu maulidi festival and at Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul and their subsequent transmission. The performance includes the musical ensemble, the dances, the performers and the latent functions that the hamziyyah and the nongak provide.

1Lanre-Babalola Folake O 

Self-perceived health status is the interpretation that individuals make of their health status and daily life experiences, and this could be linked to as the social, cultural, and historical context in which individuals live. Therefore, identifying the determining factors involved in self perceived health status is essential to understand behaviour and how to assess individual needs. However; most of these studies were confined to Western populations; moreover the possible effect of age on health cannot be over-emphasized; hence the need for a study of this nature. Questionnaire was utilized to elicit information among 200 respondents on the areas of interest and the study was conducted in Somolu Local Government Area, Lagos State. Data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and the hypotheses were tested using the chi-square (X2) and pearson correlation statistical analysis test Only 26% of the respondents perceive there health as excellent; indicating a need to pay attention to he health of the elderly in the country. Findings reveal relationships between some demographic variables like income, gender, literacy level and self perception of health among the elderly. There is also a relationship between health promoting activities and hospitalization among the elderly. Health care providers need to be more compassionate and caring to the needs of the elderly; it is also recommended that elderly persons should be provided with free health services that would make health delivery and health care services at little or no cost. 

Marianne Ojo1 

Do jurisdictions with concentrated ownership structures require less reliance on audits as corporate governance mechanisms and devices? Why do concentrated ownership structures still prevail in certain jurisdictions which are considered to be “market based corporate governance systems”? More importantly, if failures and causes of recent financial crises are principally attributable to the fact that market based corporate governance mechanisms, such as financial regulators, are not optimally performing their functions, why is the role of audits still paramount in such jurisdictions? These are amongst some of the questions which this paper attempts to address. The ever increasing growth of institutional investors in jurisdictions – particularly those jurisdictions with predominantly concentrated ownership structures, with their increased stakes in corporate equity, also raises the issue of accountability and the question as regards whether increased accountability is fostered where institutional investors assume a greater role – as opposed to position which exists where increased stake of family holdings (family controlled structures) arises. 

David Trafimow1 

The present article provides a very basic introduction to Bayes’ theorem and its potential implications for medical research. This introduction was written to be accessible to medical researchers without much mathematical background in general or without much background in Bayesian mathematics specifically. I prove Bayesian equations from very basic probability theorems and also show how these basic theorems can aid medical researchers to make important discoveries without having to do much empirical work. In many cases, the necessary empirical work, including relevant epidemiological work, is already in the medical literature and important discoveries can be made merely by looking up that work and applying one of the Bayesian equations to be presented. I also demonstrate that the traditional null hypothesis significance testing procedure that currently dominates medical research is blatantly invalid; a Bayesian point of view suggests that researchers should not use this procedure. Finally, I discuss some special issues, including philosophical issues that pertain to using a Bayesian perspective in medicine.

Edim, M.E.1, Ekuri, P. K., Odok, E.A.

The main thrust of this study was to investigate sports participation and social personality variable of students in secondary schools in Central Senatorial District of Cross River State, Nigeria. To achieve the purpose of this study, one hypothesis was formulated to guide the study. Literature review was carried out according to the variable of the study. Survey research design was adopted for the study. A sample of five hundred (500) respondents was randomly selected for the study. The selection was done through the simple random sampling technique. The questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The reliability estimate of the instrument was established through the Cronbach Alpha reliability method. Independent t-test analysis was employed to test the hypothesis under study. The hypothesis was tested at .05 level of significance. The result of the analysis revealed that, there is a significant difference in the physical variables of secondary school students who participate and those who do not participate in sports. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that students should endeavor to take home the crusade of sports participation to further foster their interpersonal relationship with others around their neighborhood and community and again, the physical education teachers who are the custodians of sports in these schools, should make sure that every student takes active part in sports during training sessions. 

Odok, E.A., Edim, M.E.1, Ekuri, P.K.  

The main thrust of this study was to investigate sports participation and physical personality variable of students in secondary schools in Central Senatorial District of Cross River State, Nigeria. To achieve the purpose of this study, one hypothesis was formulated to guide the study. Literature review was carried out according to the variable of the study. Survey research design was adopted for the study. A sample of five hundred (500) respondents was randomly selected for the study. The selection was done through the simple random sampling technique. The questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The reliability estimate of the instrument was established through the Cronbach Alpha reliability method. Independent t-test analysis was employed to test the hypothesis under study. The hypothesis was tested at .05 level of significance. The result of the analysis revealed that, there is a significant difference in the physical variables of secondary school students who participate and those who do not participate in sports. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that students in secondary schools should participate in sports to avoid sedentary lifestyle and again, the physical education teachers who are the custodians of sports in these schools, should make sure that every student takes active part in sports during training sessions. 

O.P.Akinwale1, E. Adu2, I. Seriki3 

Small Business can serve as a tool for poverty reduction in South Africa, but it requires adequate support and development for its continuous sustenance in spite of rigorous challenges, especially in the rural environment. This study explored the challenges faced by the small business owners in the rural Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The objective of the study is to identify the challenges faced by small business owners in the case study area and to examine the effects of those challenges on poverty rate. Survey research design was adopted, with the distribution of structured questionnaire for data collection through a simple random sampling method. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data. Findings showed that small business owners face various challenges in their commercial operations. It was also made clearer that these challenges have effects on the poverty rate as well as crime rate. In conclusion, in other for small businesses to be affective instrument to tackle poverty, certain measure must be taken into considerations. This therefore necessitates recommendation from the researcher that potential and current business owners must seek valuable advice from the more experienced business tycoon and seek information about the business assistance programmes provided by government and private sectors.

Emmanuel Gyan1, Peter McCarthy2*, Paul McCarthy1, Kwame Baah-Korang1 

The study of teachers’ and students’ perceptions of discipline in a secondary school in Sunyani became necessary as a result of deviant behaviour of some students in Ghanaian secondary schools in recent times. Several measures have been taken by school authorities to curb this unruly behaviour of the students but to no avail. The study was designed to investigate teachers’ and students’ perceptions of discipline in secondary schools. Purposive sampling was used to sample 50 teachers who occupied various positions in the secondary school and 150 students comprising the Students Representative Council, class prefects and their secretaries. In all, 200 respondents were used for the study. A questionnaire was designed for the respondents. The main findings of the study were that both teachers and students of the school generally agreed on what constitute discipline, and also teachers and students admitted that eight out of the sixteen acts of indiscipline that were administered were found to occur most frequently in the school. 

Dr. Amalendu Bhunia1, Lakshmi Das2 

 The present research work investigates the impact of corporate sector responsibility on firm’s profitability of seven Maharatna Companies in India. In the second decade of the New Century in India, companies are obligatory to expend corporate sector responsibility expenditures so that societies and natural environment of India are improved steadily. Now corporate social responsibility has been considered as a significant factor of profitability because most of the forms’ feel that their profitability might be increased for that. This study is based on secondary data obtained from the Annual Reports of the seven Maharatna Companies for the period from 2004 to 2013. To find out the impact corporate sector responsibility on firm’s profitability, correlation, simple regression and multiple regression analysis have been used. Empirical results indicate that corporate sector responsibility affect the firm’s profitability positively in case Gas Authority of India Ltd. and negatively in case of rest of the companies under study