June, 2016 Vol.2 No.

2 ISSN 1596-1660

REVIEW OF EDUCATION Volume 2, Number 1

AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT January, 2016, (1-8)
ISSN 1596-1660

THE INFLUENCE OF COUNSELING SERVICES ON GRADUATE STUDENTS

CAREER PURSUIT IN UNIVERSITIES IN CROSS RIVER STATE NIGERIA:
IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELING

Dr. (Mrs.) Pauline Ekpang

Department of Guidance and Counseling,
Faculty of Education University of Calabar
paulinekpan@gmail.com
+2347039477609

ABSTRACT
A good understanding of counseling services is vital to
career pursuit. This study is focused on the influence of four
counseling services namely; education services, placement
services, orientation services and vocational services on
career pursuit in Universities in Cross River State of Nigeria,
and its implications on counseling. Samples of 230 final year
students were randomly drawn from two universities in Cross
River State (University of Calabar and Cross River State
University of Technology). The instrument used for the study
was a well-constructed and validated questionnaire on
effectiveness of counseling services on career pursuit. To
achieve the purpose of the study one hypothesis was
formulated and tested at the .05 level of significance, using
Independent chi-square. It was found that counseling
services significantly influenced graduate students career
pursuit in Universities in Cross River State. Based on these
findings, it is recommended that frequent intervention
programs need to be provided to motivate students to utilize
counseling services in career pursuit.

KEYWORDS: Comparative Analysis, Graduate Students Perception,

Counseling Services, Career Pursuit

INTRODUCTION
Career paths have been a very serious issue in graduate education in Nigeria,
especially when the students may not have been exposed to any form of career
counseling technique. The importance of guidance and counseling services among

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students in the tertiary institutions with respect to their career choices cannot be over-
emphasized especially when one considers individual differences in mental abilities of
individuals, self-concept, attitude, motivation and in the students’ levels of aspiration.
From the beginning of the 21stcentury, there has been a growing concern in the way
people enter, and voluntarily exit from the world of work and the observations can be
attributed to lack of career counseling technique and inappropriate career choice.
Career counseling technique provides opportunity for people to live a life worthy of
emulation, being psychologically alright as well as providing them with status,
recognition and self esteem in terms of employment. In any society, citizens at work
show the potential progress and greatness of the nations. Thus, lack of job satisfaction
leads to poor productivity which hampers national development (Ordu, 2001).
The goal of career counseling services is to enable the individual to utilize the
opportunities and explore his or her unlimited endowed options. It is an undisputable
fact that the major service areas of guidance and counseling are, educational guidance
and counseling which assists students in their choices of career, vocational guidance
and counseling which assists the individual to choose and prepare for an occupation
that is compatible with his interests and aptitudes, and personal and social guidance
and counseling which assists the individual to behave appropriately in relation to other
members of the society (Rashid, Bakar, Asimiran and Tieng,2009). Supporting
literature on career development provide insight to the fact that counseling services is
being challenged to meet the needs of a society that is experiencing vast changes in the
workplace that is rapidly becoming more diverse (Creswell, Plano, Gutmann, &
Hanson, 2003). The changes in counseling needs have occurred because there is the
need for quality job opportunities. This has expanded the role and scope of the career
counselor to include more than helping someone find a job. Even though, finding an
optimal career is of outmost importance, career counseling now provides a broad
spectrum of concerns such as mental health issues that restrict career, changes in the
workplace and matching the needs of workers in a competitive global economy. These
issues and many more provides challenging environment to the school career counselor
in the contemporary environment.
School counselors are expected to be trained professionals; however, there are
cases of untrained persons who are in charge of guidance and counseling in the
schools. Several scholars such as Isaacson and Brown, (2000) insist that guidance
counselors should be professionals trained in psychological perspective who can
typically render numerous tangible services to parents, students and teachers. The
counseling services thus are an important team of the educational leadership team that
provides valuable assistance to students (Sandhu, 2000). There is need for schools to
provide guidance and counseling on issues including academic, vocational and/or
career counseling to students. Thus there is the need for increased training and
education to enable students venture into most fields that are important and
sophisticated than ever to choose thoughtfully (Rosenbaum & Person, 2003).
Counseling services therefore have an important role in promoting broad- based
career plans that focus on the student's interests and abilities which will give students
expanded career options. Most students are provided with inadequate information about
occupations and careers on which to base their interests. Meanwhile, job experiences
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play an important part in the development of maturity with regard to vocational interests,
abilities, and traits (Black &Langone, 2009).
Career interest, thus need to be stimulated through appropriate counseling
services, therefore, information regarding the student's preferences of activities, work
environments, emotional and monetary rewards, and supervision are required to be
provided by the counselor which at the end can help students identify congruent short-
term occupational choices and long-term career outcomes. Such accurate information
regarding performance may assist the students in the long run during transition planning
to identify the type of training, work experiences, effort, and timeline that will be required
to achieve the career preferences. The role(s) of the counselor is therefore to plan
career development intervention activities to support students make informed choices.
These activities can empower the student to cope effectively with career development
tasks (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2002), it can be a deliberate act aimed at enhancing
students career development in terms of maturity and decision making.
The counselor thus can focus on career development interventions including
career guidance, career counseling, career information, career education, career
development program and career coaching (Isaacson & Brown, 2000). Since all these
interventions help people to develop self and occupational awareness, learn career
decision making skills, job search skills, cope and adjust with job stress, problem
solving skills and others (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey 2002), students will at the end
acquire the necessary skills of giving such quality facilities. By doing this, the counselors
can facilitate the infusion of career exploration and knowledge into the students. Again
Heward (2003) posits that vocational and educational counseling can help increase
family collaboration by working closely with parents to increase family-school
communication, and by providing parents with the skills and attitudes necessary to
encourage their children to make appropriate career choices.
The idea of appropriate career to pursue by graduate students may be
dependent on the extent of counseling services which in most cases is the extent of
information available to such individuals. According to Hayes and Hopson (2009) there
are examples of societies which contain a wide range of different occupations but where
the individual’s freedom of choice is restricted by strong sanctions compelling him for
example, to work in the same occupation as his father or other relatives. In most
traditional societies, young people are not faced with the problem of making career
choices; they take up their father's trade or assume the same responsibility their mother
did. They could however be apprenticed to their relatives, friends, and competent
craftsmen for the acquisition of appropriate vocational skills. This means that in the
traditional Nigerian society, the young person’s career development and choice was
majorly dependent on parental orientation. In Nigeria, most graduate students who have
made inappropriate career choices are due to misguided information, ignorance and
parental illiteracy. They have a fixed idea of the vocation that their children should follow
irrespective of the child's level of mental capabilities, interests and other innate abilities.
Heward (2003) opined that innumerable instances can be cited of poor choice of
career may be attributed to lack of adequate counseling services. Thus, sometimes,
high ability coupled with low level of aspiration creates equally serious problems in
career pursuit. Wrong choices have led a great number of graduates into psychological
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problems arising from series of job dissatisfaction for those in employment already.
Abilities and interest for making vocation of choice change with time, especially in the
contemporary societies.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Krumboltz's Learning Theory of Careers Choice and Counseling provide in-depth
information on how career counselors collaborate with others to assist students choose
the careers of their life. For instance, in 1996, Krumboltz developed the Learning Theory
of Careers Choice and Counseling to provide a guide to practicing career counselors
who want to know what they can do to help people confronted with a variety of career-
related options. Collins (2007) identified four fundamental trends with which people
must cope when making career choices in modern society and with which career
counselors must help. First, people need to expand their capabilities and interests.
Therefore, counselors should assist clients to explore new activities, rather than
routinely directing them on the basis of measured interests that reflect limited past
experiences. Secondly, people need to prepare for changing work tasks. As a result,
learning new skills for the changing labor market can be very stressful for clients and
this can be effective through the introduction of intervention that are practical oriented
with this. Counselors have a role to play in helping them cope with stress as they learn
to develop new skills on an ongoing basis. Thirdly, people need to be empowered to
take action. In other words, many issues relevant to career decisions are often
overlooked in guidance practice (for example, a family’s reaction to taking a particular
job). The implication of this theory to the present study is that counselors need to be
prepared to collaborate to help with these issues as well as providing effective support
during the exploration process, career counselors need to play an extended role. Issues
such as burnout, career change, peer relationships, obstacles to career development
and the work role itself together with its effect on other life roles are examples of
potential problems that should attract the attention of the career practitioner.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Counseling services plays a vital role in the total development of the individual.
The duty of the counselor is to assist the student to choose a career that befits his/her
interest, personality and ability. In assessing how students, teachers, parents and the
school authorities interact to support students make inform choices, the role of the
counselor becomes crucial. This is because wrong career pursuit will not only endanger
the students, but the entire family. Again it has been observed that most students
stumble in career without due consideration of the requirements and challenges of such
careers. Others feel they are trying to satisfy their family desire in pursuing the career
they find themselves. This has led most students into pursuing wrong career choices.
Personal interaction has shown that most of them were not appropriately counseled on
the dangers of choosing careers they may not have the ability to pursue. The problem of
this study is how does counseling services influence career pursuit of graduate students
in the two Universities in Calabar?

METHODOLOGY
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The present study adopted descriptive survey design this is because the
researcher collected and analyzed the data first. The data collected and analysis sought
to explain and describe the influence of counseling services on career choice. The
population for the study was all graduate students in the faculties of education,
University of Calabar and Cross River University of Technology totaling 6,328. A sample
size of 620 final year students were chosen for this study, which was selected using
Krejcie and Morgan, 1970 table of population and the appropriate sample size. The
stratified and purposive sampling was used in selecting the sample for the study;
proportional stratified sampling technique was used. Proportional stratified sampling
was used for the selection of students.
Data for the study was collected using questionnaire and interview-focus group
discussion on the influence counseling services play to guide students to make career
choices. After a letter of introduction was used to introduce the researchers, an in-depth
focused group discussion and/or interview followed the administration of the
questionnaire a week after the administration of the questionnaire. The researcher
personally administered the instrument. The data derived from the research were both
quantitative and qualitative. As such, quantitative and qualitative methods of analyses
were employed in analyzing the data. Mean and standard deviations was used to
analyze the research questions and independent Chi-square was used to analyze the
hypothesis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The result of the hypothesis is discussed below:

Hypothesis one
There is no significant influence of counseling services on graduate students’ career
pursuit. The independent variable in this hypothesis is counseling services categorized
into education services, placement services, orientation services and vocational
services. While the dependent variable is career pursuit categorised into investigtive,
realistic, social/conventional and artistic/enterprising. The result is presented in Table 1.

TABLE 1
Summary of Chi-square analysis of the influence of counseling services
on career pursuit of graduate students
Career pursuit
Investigative Realistic Social / Artistic/ N X2-Cal
Counseling Conventional Enterprising
services
Educational 42 18 14 46 120

(27.9) (26.5) (17.2) (48.4) (120.00)

Placement 44 29 30 81 184

(42.8) (40.7) (26.3) (74.2) (184.00)

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Orientation 27 27 24 109 187 114.

4
(43.5) (41.4) (26.8) (75.4) (187.0)

Vocational 30 62 20 12 124

(28.8) (27.4) (17.7) (50.0) (124.0)

Total 143 136 88 248 615

(143.0) (136.0) (88.0) (248.0) (615.0)

Figure 1: Bar chart of the influence of counseling services on career pursuit

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The result of the analysis in table 1 shows that with 615 respondent the sample
for counseling services namely educational, placement, orientation and vocational
services on career pursuit on the basis of investigative, realistic, social/conventional and
artistic/enterprising has a calculated X2 vale of 114.4 which exceed the p value of .000
thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This implies that counseling services has a
significant influence on career pursuit of graduate students

DISCUSSIONS OF FINDINGS
The finding of the hypothesis of the influence of counseling services on career
pursuit of graduate students reveals that counseling services plays an enormous role
that serves as influencing factor in the student’s choice of career. The result of the study
agrees with the findings of Rashid (2009) on career development intervention in
Secondary School in the Terengganu State in Malaysia to the effect that all the
participants gave a 100% response to implementing career aptitude assessment, career
counseling /guidance, career field trip, career interest assessment/inventory, career
week/fair/day/conference, career talk as among the intervention programmes school
counselors apply in assisting students make career choice. Rashid (2009) came out
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with twenty-seven career interventions, career counselors in Malaysia can adopt to

assist students in secondary schools in their bid to choose a desirable career. The
extent of counseling services available to the individual may boast his career aspiration
in school as observed by Heward (2003) who found that high ability coupled with low
level of aspiration and counseling creates equally serious problems in career pursuit.

IMPLICATION FOR COUNSELING

The findings from this study and conclusion drawn are useful information that can
help to show that counseling services influence the choice of professional career among
graduate students. That implies that educational, placement orientation and vocational
counseling services have significant effect on individuals who choose career that is
satisfactory to them. There is the need for well organized counseling programs for
students to enhance their career choice. Also, the findings will help to stimulate the
active involvement of counselors in helping to reduce constant job insecurity, wrong
planning, vocational dissatisfaction and wrong career choice of students. It is also
expected that the University of Calabar and Cross River University of Technology will
establish Guidance and Counseling unit with trained counselors. The counselors should
be acquainted with the motivational factors behind the choice of the professional
courses, understanding of what students expect from some jobs and what such jobs
can offer as a way of fulfilling such expectations will be of great importance to the career
guidance counselor in directing youths to pursue vocational self-realization.

CONCLUSION/ RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings above, the study concludes that the family; the ability of
the learner to identify his/her preferred career choice and teachers are significant
factors that influence career choice of learners. In addition, the family and teachers’
support to learners play a significant role in career choice and aspirations of students. In
order for students to make the right career choice, the family (parents) should be
encouraged not to force their children into careers. Counseling services should guide
students to make the right career choice. Teachers should guide their students in their
career choice and aspirations in line with their abilities in various subjects. Schools
should provide career guidance to learners from high school to entry of university.

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