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 possess 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 (β = -.130, P>.05), Age (β = -.092, P>.05) and Level of education R2 =0.035, F3,96==1.171 accounted for 3.5%. Then, (β = .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.