Students’ Attitudes about School Counseling

Abstract

School counseling is a learning process. It facilitates student achievement and improves student behavior and attendance and helps students develop socially. There are diverse attitudes about school counseling in students. The main objectives of this research were to identify student’s attitudes about school counseling and the type of attitudes which is common in students towards school counseling. Six students participated in this research and they were selected using a convenience sampling method. A qualitative survey design was used as the research design and semi-structured interviews were also conducted. Data analysis was undertaken using thematic analysis. Although the results showed that the students have both negative and positive attitudes towards school counseling, students have more negative attitudes than positive attitudes, and gender influenced in forming their attitudes. Further, students from different categories of schools have different attitudes about school counseling. These attitudes are formed due to factors such as lack of professionalism in counseling teachers, lack of resources, lack of practical knowledge, and lack of student’s awareness about school counseling. It is recommended that students’ awareness about school counseling should be enhanced and all facilities must be provided to develop school counseling. Thereby, it would be possible to change the attitudes of students about school counseling positively.