Authors: Dr. Mitanjali Sahoo and Prasoon Kumar
Journal: Education India: A Quarterly Refereed Journal of Dialogues on Education, A UGC- CARE List Journal
Volume: 11; Issue: 3
Pages: 1-16
ISSN:2278-2435 Publication Date: August 2022

Abstract

Since the advent of human civilization, Guidance is of immense importance. It is needed in every aspect of life but Educational Guidance during secondary school is of prime significance. It has diverse benefits out of which the vital one is, it helps in selection of stream and subjects after secondary school stage. Selection of stream and subjects depends upon several factors out of which Educational interest and Academic achievement of students are important. Therefore, this study was conducted to see the effect of Educational Guidance on Educational interest of secondary school students. For this purpose, a sample of 100 students were taken from four private schools of Gaya district and pre-test scores of Educational interests were obtained. On the basis of pre-test scores of Educational interest, average academic achievement of three years, gender, locality, parental education and occupation variation, an Educational Guidance framework was developed and the intervention program was conducted for ten days in each school. The study found that gender, parental education and occupation variation plays a role in determining educational interest of secondary school students. It was found that pre-test scores of Educational interest were significantly different in relation to their gender, parental education and occupation variation. Mismatches were found in Academic achievement and Educational interest of secondary school students. Finally, it was found that pre-test and post-test scores in several components of Educational interest were significantly different after the intervention program of Educational guidance was conducted. Follow up studies were also done and it was found that the students were doing well in making choices about streams and subjects.

Keywords

Educational Guidance, Educational Interest, Academic Achievement, Secondary school students

Introduction

Since time immemorial, Guidance has been inseparable and vital part of human civilization. Everyone faces crisis in life and in order to overcome it one needs some sort of guidance. Though, guidance is needed at every stage of life of a human being, but it is obligatory in the school life. Specially, in the adolescent period during secondary stage one is stormed in a house full of mystery and one must unfold one’s own potential by selecting a suitable path, to lead a satisfactory life. Most of the times, the path is hazy and obscure and hence, they need guidance in order to choose it. Out of different types of guidance, educational guidance is needed foremost to overcome the tussles of academic life and flourish. Educational guidance is defined as a conscious effort to assist in the intellectual growth of an individual (Brewer 1918). It is specifically concerned with school matters, curricula, subjects, courses and life at schools, rather than any sort of personal, societal or social or matters related to vocation. Generally Educational Guidance could be, “assistance to be provided to the pupils who are expected to adjust in their schools, select future stream, discipline, school and university”. The National Curriculum Framework for School Education (2000) stated that guidance services are mainly meant for assisting students in their course choices and helping them to select suitable career. At secondary stage the National Curriculum Framework (2005) recommends, “At this level the courses are meant for providing awareness about various disciplines and introducing about their scope, engaging in such a manner could be helpful in discovery of interests and inducing aptitude.” Several studies on Educational and Career guidance revealed that, except for the goal selection component of vocational maturity (Tulsi, 1983) and career maturity scores were high after the intervention of guidance programme was given to students of class IX (Bhatnagar & Gupta 1988). Also, it was found that students are certainly helped in choice making about their education and vocation through psychological testing, information about occupation and group guidance programme (Gaikwad, 1989) and classroom guidance counsellors can positively influence student’s academic achievement in Mathematics (Lee, 1993). Guidance and counselling play a crucial role in prevention of student’s mental, personal, educational, social and other problems, hence, one of the significant stakeholders are counsellors (Ramakrishnan & Jalajakumari 2013). It was found that, counsellors are substantially proven to be great catalyst in enhancing the purpose of the classes’ activities and functions of the schools (Ali, 2013). Academic achievement, motivation of adolescents was significantly influenced by parental education (Acharya & Joshi, 2009) and various strategies are utilized in order to nourish academic excellence in children by involving them in home and school by those parents who possesses higher level of education (Vellymalay, 2011). A study conducted by Singh & Singh (2015) found that career preferences of students were influenced by their sex, parental occupation and background. In student’s selection of course and career, the influence of parents is the most (Hassan, 2014). Joshi (2015) found that vocational interests of girls and boys significantly differed in the fields of science, arts, social, venturous and computational subfield of analytics. Shajimon & Musthafa (2013) found that students had preference to Medical, Science, Technology, IT, Computer, Management, Academic Administration, Media, Engineering, Insurance, Banking and Defence, Security, Law and Order. Parents are reluctant to this fact and they compel their children to pursue medical courses and hence there is dire-need of special guidance and counselling services for these matters to Parents, Teachers and Administrators. Mattoo (2013) found that there was more inclination of girls towards household and sports activities, Fine Arts and crafts whereas boys had higher interest towards technical and outdoor activities. Similar results were found in the study conducted by Singh (2014) which indicated that girls preferred artistic, literary, social, constructive, household and commercial fields in contrast to boys who were more interested slightly in agriculture, scientific, persuasive and executive fields. Bhawana (2016) investigated and found that students were more interested in fine arts and science subjects. Khandwala (2017) found that enterprising field of vocations were preferred more by male than female students. How to conduct educational guidance program calls for the need of effective educational guidance framework which was not found in any study. There was no study on the relation of parental occupation variation on educational interest. The studies investigating effectiveness of guidance were very old and it was a need to conduct a new one since the scenario has changed a lot now. Also, there was no study conducted to see the effect of educational guidance program on educational interest. So, there was need to investigate this gap and it became focus of this study. Educational guidance is affected by factors such as – educational interest, academic achievement, gender, locality, parental education and occupation variation. In this study educational guidance is provided primarily based on educational interest and academic achievement. The secondary to higher secondary transition is very critical and requires judicious decision making. After class 10th, choosing subject is always full of stress and puzzles students to do decision making by mind filled with ambiguities and thus end up in choosing wrong stream. This may lead to worst consequences in long term. Students may start being repelled by their subject and due to this hate they might feel stressed or frustrated and may also quit their subject in the midway. Therefore, it is vital to choose subjects which are aligned with the interests of students in order to optimization of possibilities.

Recommended citation

Sahoo, M., & Kumar, P. (2022). Effectiveness of educational guidance on educational interest of secondary school students. Education India: A Quarterly Refereed Journal of Dialogues on Education, 11(3), 01-16. ISSN 2278-2435.