To Do or Not To Do: Rural Secondary School Teachers’ Perceived Self-Efficacy Levels To Conduct Learner Counselling In Zimbabwe

Abstract

The paper explored the professional self-efficacy levels on the part of rural secondary school classroom practitioners with regard to undertaking learner counselling in Masvingo province in Zimbabwe. Theoretically the study was grounded in the domain of Psychology of Education focusing on Bandura’s social learning theory, Rogers’ person-centred theory and Freud’s classical psychoanalysis together with Maslow’s need theory. The study adopted a mixed method approach in which the descriptive survey research design was paired with a chi-square test as a means of methodological triangulation. Open-ended questionnaires and telephone interviews were used as data gathering instruments during the empirical investigation. A gender balanced sample of 80 secondary school teachers based in rural areas took part in the study. The stratified random sampling method,in which stratification was done relative to gender and highest professional qualifications, was employed during the sampling process.The study revealed that about 55% of the respondents felt imbued with ample self-efficacy to undertake learner counselling at secondary school level. That category of research participants believed that their teacher-training and teaching experience have arguably equipped them to play a crucial role in the counselling of rural secondary school learners across a myriad of issues. However, there were some teachers who confessed that they were not very comfortable to undertake learner counselling due to a multiplicity of variables. The researchers recommended that classroom practitioners should continue upgrading their professional qualifications so as to elevate their self-efficacy levels. The need to have nationwide counselling workshops to staff-develop classroom practitioners was also recommended.