EXPLORING FIRST YEAR STUDENT COUNSELLING NEEDS IN AN OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING INSTITUTION

Directorate for Career Counselling and Development (DCCD) at the University of South Africa conducted a study to explore first year student’s counselling needs. A descriptive research design was employed. The survey questionnaire, adapted from Gallager, Golin, and Kelleher (1992), was emailed to a total of 6458 first year students from the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES) and College of Science, Engineering and Technology (CSETS) and the response rate was 60%. The measuring instrument has an inter-item reliability of 0, 92. Initially, student’’ counselling needs were classified along three constructs, the factor analysis showed that there were six constructs which were named: Career Advancement (CA), Self (S), Effective Studying Skills (ESS) , Job Searching Skills (JSS),Organisational and Planning (O&P) and Relationship and Emotions (R&E). Students were compared according to age groups, race, gender and college. Descriptive statistic were performed and the results showed that first year students needs counselling on adaptation to studying at an Open Distance Learning (ODL) institution, knowing career opportunities, improving study skills, preparing for examinations, identifying further study opportunities, compiling career portfolios, preparing for job interviews, and dealing with exam failure. Counselling needs which are considered less important to students were issues relating to accepting others and dealing with peer pressure.