AGE, GENDER AND LEVEL OF EDUCATION AS PREDICTORS OF ATTITUDE TOWARDS COUNSELLING SERVICES AMONG STUDENTS IN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Counselling is necessary in theological education because it helps in remediating many problems
but the attitude of theological students towards counselling is not encouraging. Previous study has
investigated parental and peer influences on attitude towards counselling in theological seminary
but neglected socio demographic variables such as age, gender, level of education which the present
study focused on. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study and 120 students
(80 male and 40 female) were purposively selected to represent all the theological students in Ondo
state because they possesses similar characteristics. A structured questionnaire divided into two
sections (demographic variable section and Attitude Towards Counselling Scale r=0.82 section),
was used to collect data from the respondents. The results showed that there was no joint
contribution of age, gender and education level to attitude towards counseling( that Gender (â = -
.130, P>.05), Age (â = -.092, P>.05) and Level of education R2 =0.035, F3,96==1.171 accounted
for 3.5%. Then, (â = .130, P>.05) could not independently and significantly predict Media
resources utilization. It was recommended that the management of CAC Theological Seminary
should promote positive attitude towards counselling more among students irrespective of age,
gender and level of education.