Attitudes of university of Cape Coast male students towards counselling

Abstract

The study sought to examine University of Cape Coast (UCC) male students’ attitudes towards counselling on UCC campus. Descriptive survey was used as the research design. Simple random sampling and proportional sampling techniques were employed to select the respondents for this study. Both closeended and open-ended questionnaires were administered to sample of 345 male students for the achievement of set objectives. Descriptive statistics and chi-square test were used to determine the relationship between UCC male students’ attitude towards counselling and the variables of interest. The findings of the study suggested that the decision of male students in UCC to access counselling was independent of popular perceptions people hold about counselling. In addition, the study found that male students of UCC perceive counselling as beneficial to them as well as those who want to access the services. It was found that key factors that influenced the decision to access counselling services included the feeling of embarrassment for sharing their problems, culture variation and self-esteem issues. Age, religion and the level of education has no influence on the perceived embarrassment that comes with sharing one’s problems with the counsellor. It was recommended that to ensure effective and improved patronage, University counsellors must convince students that confidentiality in delivery of their service is always upheld. Also, the University authorities should always sensitize students on the need of seeking counselling through educating the students about the benefits of counselling for all.