Attitudes of College of Education students towards face -to -face and online counselling at the E.P. College of Education

Abstract

Counselling is an essential profession which has made significant improvement in the lives of people, and has typically evolved in several ways in today’s world. It has become an essential part of people’s lives, improved cognitive functioning, maintained relationships and improved communication skills of individuals. The aim of the study was to examine the attitudes of students towards face-face and online counselling in E.P. College of Education, Bimbilla. Specifically, the objectives of the study were to ascertain the attitudes of students towards online counselling and face-to-face counselling, to determine significant gender differences in the attitudes of students towards online counselling and face-to-face counselling and to explore avenues that can enhance both face-to-face and online counselling in the College. The researcher adopted the quantitative approach, specifically, the descriptive survey design. The population for the study included all students in the Evangelical Presbyterian College of Education, Bimbilla. The researcher in this study employed the proportionate stratified sampling technique to select 302 sample size for this study. Structured questionnaires were adopted as the main instrument for the conduct of this study. Descriptive statistics such as means and standard deviations as well as frequencies and percentages were used to analyse the research questions formulated in the study. Inferential statistics such as the independent t-test samples test was also used to analyse the hypotheses formulated in the study. It was concluded that students had positive attitudes towards online and face-to-face counselling. Hence, majority of the students generally believed that counselling whether online or face-to-face had a positive effect on them as students. This means that they perceived that online or face-to-face counselling were very beneficial. Also, there was a significant gender difference in students’ attitudes towards online counselling but there was no significant gender difference in terms of face-to-face counselling. Lastly, it was concluded that five avenues that can be exploited to enhance face-to-face and online counselling include free WIFI, proper education, proper orientation, proper infrastructure and enough funds. It was recommended that school authorities should enhance the internet services and provide adequate infrastructure on campus to strengthen counselling services.