Influence of Group Counselling Programmes in Facilitating the Vocational Choice of Secondary School Students in Jalingo Education Zone, Taraba State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of group counselling programmes on the vocational choice of secondary school students in Jalingo Education Zone, Taraba state, Nigeria. The design of the study was descriptive survey. The population consist of 3,485 Students from 41   secondary schools in Jalingo education zone. The sample size of the study was 480 respondents from 12 public secondary schools in Jalingo education zone. The researcher’s self-developed questionnaire formed the instruments for data collection, validated by three experts from the department of educational foundations in Taraba State University.  A Cronbach Alpha reliability of co-efficient method was employed to ensure the reliability of the instrument at 0.768. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were used to guide the study. Descriptive statistic of mean score was used to answer the research questions. Chi square (?²) inferential statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. A checklist of 53 different vocations and 21-items questionnaire in four Likert point scale with demographic variables of the respondents was used for data collection.   The study recommends that government should give group counselling priority, train more professional counsellors; counsellors and principals should give students adequate attention and should create more awareness and provide accurate information to students on group counselling to facilitate their vocational choice irrespective of their age and gender.