Twenty-eighth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

Guidance and counselling services aim to assist individuals in various aspects of life. In Nigerian tertiary institutions, guidance and counselling units/clinic/directorate are established to deal with formal areas of counselling which include educational and psychological counselling in which various students diversity can be identified and addressed. The purpose of this study is to find out some of the diversities that are capable of affecting the psychological wellbeing of individuals to adapt in their institutions and how guidance and counselling services are used in addressing these challenges. Three null hypotheses were postulated to guide the study. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select a sample of 60 students from one university in each of the six Geo- Political zones in Nigeria. In all, 360 undergraduate students from six Federal Universities were used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a self- developed questionnaire. The data collected was analysed using one way analysis of variance statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance. The study found out that ethnicity, religion and socioeconomic status of the students are serious challenges in coping adequately well in full realization of their dreams and that guidance and counselling offered in these universities did not address those challenges. Among others, the study recommends that the management of the universities should strengthen and upgrade the existing counselling unit/clinic/directorates to be more functional in addressing student diversity.