The Influence of Counseling Services and Career Choices among Secondary School Students

The Influence of Counseling Services and Career Choices among Secondary School Students

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the influence of counseling services and career choices among secondary school students in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area. The population of the study was made up of the entire students in all the public secondary schools in the study area. The total population for the study was three thousand six hundred and one (3601) students in all the eleven public secondary schools in the study area. The sample size for the study was two hundred (200) senior secondary two (ss2) students drawn from five selected secondary schools in the study area. Expo-facto research design was used for the study.

Three research questions and three hypotheses were postulated to guide the study. Counseling Services and Career Choice Questionnaire (CSCCQ) was the instrument used in collecting the needed data for the study. The independent t-test statistical method was used to test hypotheses one, two and three. The study revealed that counseling such as educational, vocational and social-personal have influence on career choice among secondary school students. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that parents, teachers and school administrators should endeavour to encourage students to seek and patronize counseling services, for them to understand the choice of subject and make good decision concerning their personal characteristics and the requirements of the choice of career in schools. 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background to the Study

Guidance is the process of helping an individual helping to help himself and to develop his potentialities to the fullest by utilizing maximum opportunities provided by the environment. We need to understand the dimension of guidance in order to appreciate the attendance functions expected of counselors or guidance experts in schools. Mutic (2009) defined guidance as a learning oriented process which occurs in an interactive relationship with the aim of helping the clients to learn more about themselves. Guidance is therefore aimed at bringing about maximum development and self-realization of human potentials for the benefit of the individual and the society. Gichinga (2008) observes that guidance programme has had impact in secondary schools in Nigeria by helping individual student to choose and pursue available careers. Guidance programme have three major dimensions. These are: educational dimension, vocational dimension, and personal-social guidance.

These three dimensions are not mutually exclusive but inter-related Ekanem and Eneh (2005). They are inter-related because any problem in one area may affect the other. For example, a personal-social problem can create an educational problem while a vocational problem may arise from an educational or personal-social problem. It is the individual who is at the centre of all these. As Denga (2012) puts it basic to all purposes of student counseling is the objective of the student’s total development. He further stated that educational guidance is mainly at helping students solve their educational problems.

Such problems as listed by Denga (2007) include; how to make appropriate choices of subjects and educational programmes; how to develop effective study habits; how to make good grades in school; how to choose appropriate institutions for further studies; how to cope with examination anxiety  and how to budget study time. In order to achieve the objectives of educational guidance the counselor has to do. In conjunction with other school personel, he should organize orientation for new students, have individual or group educational concerning with the students and assess students’ study behaviour in order to identify effective study habit and consequently help remedy them.

According to Makinde(2008) guidance programme is one of the roles for school counselor use to help students who have difficulties in making a career choice. This means that vocational guidance in school should be employed to assist students to make realistic and appropriate vocational decisions. Realistic decisions refer to those decisions that are not beyond the reach of those making them. This means that students should aspire to enter occupations that suit their interests, values and abilities. Ekanem and Eneh (2005) stated that the third component of guidance and counseling in school setting is personal-social and psychological problems most of which are of a privatized nature. Typical examples include interpersonal relationship problems, family problems, emotional disturbances, phobia, drug abuse and sexual difficulties among others. These problems cut across academic performance and also provide basis for failure in occupational pursuits.

The Influence of Counseling Services and Career Choices among Secondary School Students

1.2   Statement of the Problem

 Effective guidance is essential in every school. An organized guidance programme will offer right environment for the growth and development of the educational system in our schools. Nwachukwu and Ugwuegbulam(2006) thus see the need for introduction of guidance in schools as to give students career information and to assist them to make appropriate and realistic educational, social-personal and vocational choices and to produce students who are properly adjusted socially and emotionally and who are mature enough to face the world after the completion of their secondary education.

The society in which the child grows is not immune from a number of disabling societal and individual problems. Such as lack of guiding values, lack patriotism, acrimonious inter-personal conflicts and self-leadership. Poor academic performance by students has been link to lack of proper guidance by the parents and the teacher despite numerous ways in which government has facilitate the introduction of guidance programmes in school, still there is great height of indiscipline among students which contributed to their poor academic performance. In order to control this situation, guidance programs therefore have to be taken serious through the employment of experts services to assist students overcome numerous challenges they experience at home and at school and other to yield positive result in their academic achievement and performances.

1.3   Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of guidance dimensions and academic performance of students in Biology in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area.

Specifically, the study intends to:

(i) Assess the influence of educational guidance on academic performance of students in Biology.

(ii) Examine the influence of vocational guidance on academic performance of students in Biology.

(iii)  Determine the influence of social-personal guidance on academic performance of students in Biology.

1.4   Significance of the Study

The outcome of this research will help educating and concomitantly serving as a guide to both parent and schools on the effect of guidance on the academic performance of students.  This research will also serve as a resource base to other researchers interested in carrying out further research in this field subsequently, if applied will go to an extent to provide new explanation to the topic. It will help the teachers and the guidance counselors to evaluate the students with special needand difficulties. It will serve as an effective measure in addressing the challenges facing secondary school students in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area.

It also be of help to school administrators in assessing their contribution to guidance programme in schools as its influence academic performance of student in their schools. When guidance programme is well conceptualized by educational policy makers and implemented by the teacher counselor with the support of the school, the students will benefit by improving their academic achievements and self-ac actualization. The result of the study will also help the students to create a good and cordial relationship with their teacher counselor. It will bring self-concept to the students that will help them understand himself/herself and regulate their behavior.

1.5   Research Questions

The following research questions were formulated to guide a study:

1. To what extent does educational guidance influence the academic performance of students in Biology?
2. To what extent does vocational guidance influence the academic performance of students in Biology?

iii.     To what extent does social-personal guidance influence academic performance of students in Biology?

The Influence of Counseling Services and Career Choices among Secondary School Students

1.6   Research Hypotheses

In order to guide the study, the following research hypotheses are postulated:

1. There is no significant influence of educational guidance on academic performance of students in Biology.
2. There is no significant influence of vocational guidance on academic performance of students in Biology.

iii.     There is no significant influence of social-personal guidance on academic performance of students in Biology.

1.7   Delimitation of the Study

This research work focuses on the influence of guidance dimensions on academic performance of Biology students in secondary school in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State. This research work covers only public secondary schools in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area. However, five public secondary schools was selected for the study.

1.8   Limitation of the Study

The researcher encountered some difficulties in obtaining information for the study such as time-frame and shortage of finance. The research was also limited due to the inability of the researcher to cover all the public secondary schools in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State as the title suggest.

1.9   Definition of Terms

Academic performance: Refers to knowledge attained or skills developed in school subjects by test score or examination.

Biology: This refers to the study of science that deals with living and non-living things.

Dimension of the guidance: This refers to certain areas in which guidance program can be instituted.

Educational guidance dimension: This is an assistance given to pupil individually and through group techniques to help them function more effectively in their school progress.

Vocational guidance dimension: It is the process of helping the individual to ascertain, accept, understand and apply the relevant facts about the occupational world which are ascertained through incidental and planned explanatory activities.

Social guidance dimension: This is meant to provide assistance in all problems which do not come within the purview of educational and vocational guidance.

CHAPTER TWO

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The chapter is concerned with the review of related literature by other researchers. The review is carried out under the following sub-headings:

1. Educational Dimension and academic performance of students
2. Vocational dimension and academic performance of students
3. Social/personal dimension and academic performance of students
4. Summary of review of related literature.