Effectiveness of Preventive Counselling in Addressing Public Secondary School Students’ Problem Behaviors in Igembe South Sub-County Kenya

Abstract

Addressing and dealing with the perennial students’ problem behaviors have become a major challenge in secondary schools. The conventional counselling approaches applied deals with the students who already had developed problem behaviors and little done in preventing and reducing the occurrence of the problem behaviors in students. This is indicated by the recurrence of common deviant behaviors like drug and substances abuse; teenage premarital sex and pregnancy; absenteeism, truancy and dropout; dishonesty; violence and arson witnessed in secondary schools. Preventive counselling operate at three levels of problem behaviors where primary preventive approach deals with students having no signs of behavioral problem in order to prevent it from occurring; secondary preventive approach targets students showing early signs and onset of behavioral problems and address them to stop maladjusted behaviors while the tertiary preventive approach concerns those going through the painful consequences of the behavioral problems, rehabilitate and help them to recover, cope and adjust and to positive behavior changes. This study therefore sought to establish the effectiveness of preventive counselling interventions in addressing these common behavioral problems in public secondary school students in Igembe South Sub-County. The study adapted a descriptive survey research design and involved 42 public secondary schools with a total enrolment of 8,017 students. Accessible population of the study was 1,974 form three students from which a sample of 317 respondents was drawn to participate in the study through simple random sampling. Further 15 teacher counsellors and 15 deputy principals from the selected schools were purposively sampled to participate in the study. The study had a total sample of 347 respondents. Data was collected using questionnaires. To ensure validity of the instruments, the researcher sought expert judgement and opinion from the university supervisors and other experts in addition to searching relevant literature in determining the content, construct and face validities. To test the reliability of the instruments, a pilot study was conducted in three sampled secondary schools in Igembe North Sub-County which had similar conditions. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient method was used to estimate the internal consistency and reliability of the instruments. The reliability coefficients of 0.903, 0.875 and 0.794 were obtained for the students, teacher counsellors and deputy principals respectively. An average reliability coefficient of alpha scale of 0.857 was arrived at indicating that the instruments used were reliable. Data collected was organised, collated and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 and presented using frequency tables, percentages, charts and graphs. The findings showed that the three preventive counselling approaches were effective in addressing various aspects of secondary school students’ problem behaviors. Primary preventive counselling rated at 78.1%; secondary preventive counselling at 74.7% and tertiary preventive counselling with 75.4%. From the study findings, the researcher recommends empowerment of trained teacher counsellors specifically with more emphasis on the preventive counselling approaches in order to enable them effective address students’ problem behaviors. A favourable counselling environment should be set in all secondary schools to make students willingly, comfortably and voluntarily seek guidance and counselling and ensure teacher counselors efficiently address students counselling needs. The government policy makers should work in consultation with all stakeholders to develop proper framework ensures that all the preventive counselling approaches are effected well in order to address all the students’ problem behaviors before they become severe and cause more psychological, social, moral, and physical damage to the students, schools and the society.