Influence of counsellors’ gender on students’ approach towards guidance and counselling relationship in school setting

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the influence of gender of the counsellor on students’ attitude towards guidance and counselling profession in Rivers State. The study was guided by one purpose of study, three research questions and three hypotheses formulated and tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The scope of the study covered male and female students’ preference towards male counsellors, male and female students’ preference towards female counsellors and male and female students’ attitude towards male counsellors. The research design adopted for the study was ex-post facto with a total population of 280 students from senior secondary school III SS III. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select respondents and institutions to get the sample students used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a 15-item questionnaire structured on a four-point scale format .The instrument was validated by two specialists, one in guidance and counselling and another in Educational Measurement. Test–re-test approach was used to authenticate the reliability of the study which yielded a coefficient value of 0.81. Mean and standard deviation and t-test statistics was used to test the four hypotheses formulated for the study. The results indicated that male clients had no choice of counsellor while female students develop more interest on male counselors. The study recommended among other things that Rivers State ministry of education in charge of posting of guidance counsellors to schools should consider to post male and female counsellors to schools to cater for the needs of the gender of the students.