Effects of counseling on study habits : locus of control among senior secondary students in Nigeria

Abstract

Students are expected to be analytical organisers, able to critically pattern their study for academic excellence. However the attitudes of Nigerian students towards studying and learning fall strikingly short of these expectations. Many have difficulty forming sound study habits, and tend to have an external locus of control. The term locus of control (Rotter, 1954) refers to a person's basic belief system about the influences that affect outcomes in their lives. Those with an external locus believe that forces outside of themselves affect their ability to succeed, while the most successful people tend to have an internal locus of control. Statistics show that about 80 percent of Nigerian students fail annually and that the educational career of more than one million Nigerian students is in jeopardy (Alaneme, 2010; Olugbile, 2008; Otti, 2011). Studies have found that students with an external locus of control and poor study habits experience poor academic performance and that those who fail often believe that they will not succeed again. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether those who have experienced counselling altered their negative attitudes towards studying and indicated an improvement in their study habits. Participants were 20 academic underachievers, ten male and ten female, aged 15 to 21 years, recruited from three schools in Nigeria. A mixed-methods approach was used; qualitative methods took the form of semi-structured interviews while quantitative data was collected using four widely-used questionnaires. Thematic analysis and Related T-Test were used respectively for data analysis. The findings suggest that counselling played a significant role in students' attitudinal change.