PERCEPTIONS OF GUIDANCE COUNSELLORS ON FACTORS HINDERING ONLINE COUNSELLING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN LAGOS STATE

Abstract

One of the major responsibilities of professional counsellors is the provision of counselling service to every school child irrespective of the child’s location. However, counsellors could encounter challenges in rendering quality virtual service to students due to many factors. This study therefore investigated school counsellors’ perceptions on factors hindering online counselling in Lagos State, Nigeria. The descriptive survey method was adopted where a total of one hundred and twenty respondents were randomly selected to participate in the study. Questionnaire titled “Factors Hindering Online Counselling Service Questionnaire (FHOCS)” was employed to gather data. The content validity of the instrument was established using experts. The reliability value of 0.71 was established. The measure of central tendency (mean) and rank ordering were used to answer the research question while t-test statistical tool was used to test the first hypothesis and One Way Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the second and third hypotheses. The results revealed that irregular supply of electricity and interruption of therapy due to technological problems were the most significant factors hindering provision of online counselling service to students. Also, there is significant difference based on educational qualification. It was recommended that school counsellors should take time out to acquire training on personal computing and its applications and how to navigate the internet and other technological devices for delivery of online guidance and counselling services.