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The study focused on the influence of peer group counselling and school influence on the self-concept of adolescents' in Nigerian secondary schools. Sixty-eight Senior Secondary School II students from three schools - a boys' school, a girls' school and a co-educational school in Benin City, participated in the study. A pre-test, post-test control group experimental design was employed forthe study. A 40-item self-concept scale adapted from Akinboye (1977) APDI, was validated and used to measure the self-concept of the participants. The internal reliability for the scale is reported to be .70 (Cronbach's alpha), and the test-retest reliability was .87. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Results of the statistical analysis of data indicated that peer group counselling had a significant positive effect on the self-concept of the participants (t-value of 6.58 is greater than the critical t-value of 1.96, df , 66). Similarly, school type was found to have a significant effect on the self-concept of adolescents - girls in the single-sex school had significantly higher self-concept than girls in the co-educational school. (F-value of 5.024 with df (3, 52). A significant interactive effect on self-concept was found between the treatment and school type. This interaction was ordinal and did not qualify the main effects. Implications for counselling are discussed.
This study examined the effect of peergroup counselling on adolescent development of self- concept. Peer group counselling is a powerful intervention strategy with adolescent, since it is the power of the peer group that influences young people the most (Carty , Rosenbaum, Lafreniere, and Sutton, 2000). While there is the overall evidence for the efficacy of peer group counselling, as a positive force, in influencing the self-concept of adolescent development in literature. It is an area of research that needs attention and study among Nigerian adolescents because there are almost no intervention studies in the literature.
The school counsellor is central to all the participants involved in the education of the student. He/she has to meet the one-to-one needs of not only the 'students in need' but also of all the students. The role of the school counsellor is one that is growing with the times. As the society faces increasing challenges - financial, cultural and social, so...