RETHINKING HIGHER EDUCATION: PERCEPTION OF SOME SELECTED UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ON VIRTUAL COUNSELLING IN LAGOS METROPOLIS, NIGERIA

Abstract

In spite of the availability of counselling services in the Nigerian universities, quite a number of university students fail to explore these golden opportunities. They rather endure a lot of psychosocial challenges that would have been ameliorated on a platter of gold through the use of counselling services. Therefore, this study investigated the perception of some selected Nigerian university students on virtual counselling in Lagos Metropolis. Two research hypotheses were explored. The population of the study comprised all undergraduate students in a selected University in Lagos Metropolis. A sample of 334 students (139 male and 195 female) was used. Two Online Counselling Attitude Scales were adapted for the study. The data generated were treated with the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Independent t-test statistics was used for testing the hypotheses at a .05 level of significance.  The findings revealed that the students have positive perception on virtual counselling with the implication that they would use it to corroborate the face-to-face conventional counselling services. It is therefore recommended that university policymakers integrate virtual counselling into educational policies to enhance students’ awareness and utilisation of counselling services.

Keywords: Virtual Counselling, Psychosocial Challenges, University students, Well-being, Metropolis.