Counselling for Occupational Development

Abstract

The aim of the study was to ascertain the general attitude which senior secondary school students display towards counselling for occupational development while determining gender difference in students’ attitude towards occupational information. It is also aimed at discovering whether these students seek vocational guidance in their choice of vocation. Three research questions guided the study. A descriptive survey research design was adopted. One hundred and twenty (120) students comprising sixty (60) males and sixty (60) females were selected out of six hundred (600) students using a stratified random sampling technique. A twenty-four (24) item-questionnaire was used as the instrument to collect relevant data. The validity of the instrument was ascertained by experts in vocational guidance in the Department of Educational Psychology/Guidance and Counselling of Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri. Copies of the questionnaire were then administered to the subjects of study and were retrieved on the spot. Simple percentages were used to analyse the three research questions. Findings of the study revealed that senior secondary school students had a positive attitude towards counselling for occupational development; gender had no significant influence on the attitude of students towards occupational information, and senior secondary school students do not seek vocational guidance in their choice of vocation. Among others, it was recommended that the school authority encourages counsellors who should emphasise the relationship between school subjects and future career of the students to enable them make appropriate choice while providing students with job analysis and occupational information in newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

Keywords: Counselling, Occupational development, Vocational guidance, Occupational information