Influence of selected factors on students’ and teacher counselors’ perception of guidance and counseling in Bungoma County public secondary schools, Kenya

Abstract

Guidance and counselling is an important component of education that helps students to successfully cope with challenges of life. Students with maladaptive behaviour are assisted to correct and overcome difficulties facing them. Students are encouraged to identify and avoid risky situations through acquisition of life skills, attitudes and living values that can help them manage their problems. This is contrary to what is being observed in Bungoma County as students still show maladjusted behaviour as seen through strikes, drug abuse, early pregnancies and dropping out of school. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of selected factors on students’ and teacher counsellors’ perception of guidance and counselling in public secondary schools students in Bungoma County. The study employed an ex post facto causal-comparative research design. The study focused on 206 public secondary schools in Bungoma County with a population of 41,310 students. Using stratified random sampling, 16 schools, form 2 and 3 classes were selected to participate in the study. Simple random sampling method was used to select a sample of students and purposive sampling was used to select teacher counsellors. A sample of 389 students and 15 teacher counsellors participated in the study. Questionnaires were used to gather data from students and teacher counsellors’. A pilot study on 30 students and three teacher counsellors in Bungoma County was carried out. Reliability was established using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. The results yielded a coefficient 0.71 which was considered acceptable. Validity of instruments was ascertained by the experts in the Department of Psychology, Counselling and Educational Foundations. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Hypotheses of the study were tested using t - test at α = 0.05.Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 for Windows was used in data analysis. The findings revealed that there were significant differences on the influence of selected factors (culture, peers, family, mass media and gender) on students’ and teacher counsellors’ perception of guidance and counselling. The students, teacher counsellors and parents would hopefully find the study findings useful for effective guidance and counselling programmes in secondary schools.