Availability and utilization of Counselling Services among Students in Rivers State-owned Universities in Port Harcourt Metropolis

The study examined availability and utilization of counselling services among students in Rivers State-owned universities in Port Harcourt Metropolis. The descriptive survey research design was used in this research. The population of the study consisted of all undergraduate students in Rivers State owned Universities in Port Harcourt metropolis, Rivers State, Nigeria. There are two universities namely: Rivers State University (RSU) with a student population which comprised 28,000 students, and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUE) which comprised 25,000 students respectively. The sample size was 398, but rounded up to 400 selected using multi-stage sampling technique. The instrument for this study was a structured questionnaire titled ‘’Availability and Utilization of Counselling Services Questionnaire’’ (AUCSQ). The face and content validity of the instrument were ascertained by three experts, one from the Department of Educational Psychology, Guidance and Counselling, and the other two in Measurement and Evaluation, from the Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt. The reliability of the instrument was established using the Cronbach Alpha reliability method to determine the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. The reliability coefficient was computed for each subscale of the questionnaire as well as for the entire instrument. Specifically, Sub-scale A (Availability of Educational Counselling Services) had a reliability of 0.78; Sub-scale B (Availability of Personal-Social Counselling Services) was 0.64. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and the t-test statistics was employed to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The four-point rating scale was assigned the following values based on the mean score. A score of 2.5 or more was accepted, whereas a score of less than 2.5 was not. Consequently, the decision-making threshold mean score was set at 2.5. Findings showed that educational counselling services were generally available to undergraduate students in both RSU and IAUE. Vocational counselling services were generally available in the two universities, with a grand mean of 3.41. It was recommended that the management of RSU and IAUE should strengthen educational counselling services by ensuring that students received regular and adequate information about the services available to them.