Influence of Clients’ Counselling Expectations on Psychological Help Seeking Behaviour among Students in National Open University of Nigeria

Fidel Onjefu Okopi*, Clifford Moses Amini**
*,** National Open University of Nigeria, Nigeria.
Periodicity:May - July'2020
DOI : https://doi.org/10.26634/jpsy.14.1.16213

Abstract

The researchers investigated the influence of students counselling expectations on their behaviours in efforts to seek psychological help in National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). The descriptive research design was used for this study. Four research questions and four hypotheses were formulated. Stratified sampling was used to select six hundred (600) students from Lagos study, Port Harcourt Centre, Enugu Centre, Makurdi Centre and Maiduguri Centres of the National University of Nigeria. The abridged version of Counselling Expectations survey questionnaire containing 52 items was used for this study. The questionnaire is designed to measure students' perceived counsellor’s expertise, clients' personal commitment and counsellor’s facilitative ability in building therapeutic relationship were validated, piloted tested and used for the research. Counsellor’s expertise was the greatest influential variable in students' counselling expectations. When the hypotheses were tested at P<.05, Alpha level significant using IBM SPSS statistics 20, Paired Samples Test, differences were noted between students' personal commitment factor and counsellor’s expertise; students' personal commitment factor and counsellor's facilitative ability in building therapeutic relationship factor, counsellor’s expertise and counsellor's facilitative ability in building therapeutic relationship factor. Though, counsellor’s expertise factor was the most influential expectancy in students' seeking psychological help in NOUN, other two expectations were considered to be germane and relevant to their expectations. In conclusion the counsellor’s expertise, attitude and attribute in counselling play a pivotal role in the students' counselling expectations in seeking psychological helping behaviour.

Keywords

Counselling Expectation; Psychological Help Seeking Behaviour, Psychological Disorder

How to Cite this Article?

Okopi, F. O., and Amini, C. M. (2020). Influence of Clients' Counselling Expectations on Psychological Help Seeking Behaviour among Students in National Open University of Nigeria. i-manager's Journal on Educational Psychology, 14(1), 12-23. https://doi.org/10.26634/jpsy.14.1.16213

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