MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING AND SOLUTION-FOCUSED THERAPIES ON COUNSELLORS’ COMPETENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Counsellors’ Competence is important in the dissemination of counselling activities in schools. School Counsellors occupy an important position within the school system to assist students by enhancing their abilities in coping with their academic pursuits and antisocial behaviour. However, secondary school Counsellors’ Competence (CC) is in doubt as a result of aggravated manifestations of anti-social behaviour among the secondary school students in Ibadan. Previous studies largely focused on predisposing factors hindering Counsellors’ effectiveness at the neglect of therapy to promote their competence. This study, therefore, was designed to determine the effects of Motivational Interviewing Therapy (MIT) and Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT) in the enhancement of Counsellors’ Competence in secondary schools in Ibadan. The moderating effects of Gender and Counselling Efficacy were also examined. Self-Determination Theory provided the framework, while the pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design of 3x2x3 factorial matrix was adopted. Eleven Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Ibadan land were stratified into Ibadan less city and Ibadan municipal which comprised six and five LGAs respectively. Three LGAs were randomly selected from each stratum. Fifteen Secondary Schools with at least a School Counsellor were purposively selected from each LGA. Ninety School Counsellors (one per school) were randomly selected. Participants were randomly assigned into MIT (30), SFT (30) and control (30) groups. Instruments used were Counselling Competence Scale (α = 0.90), Counselling Efficacy Scale (α = 0.89) and instructional guides. Treatment lasted eight weeks. Data were analysed using Descriptive Statistics, Analysis of Covariance and Sidak post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance. The School Counsellors’ age was 40.50 ± 2.30 years with 70.0% female counsellors. There was a significant main effect of treatment on CC (F(2;87) = 7.36; partial η2 = 0.16). School Counsellors in SFT had the highest mean score (68.53), followed by MIT (66.13) and control (56.35) groups. There was a significant main effect of counselling efficacy on CC (F(2;87) = 8.10; partial η2 = 0.18). School counsellors with high counselling efficacy had the highest mean score (66.19), followed by moderate (62.87) and low (59.46) counselling efficacy. There was no significant main effect of gender. There was a significant two-way interaction effect of treatment and counselling efficacy on CC (F(4;85) = 2.48; partial η2 = 0.12) in favour of counsellors from SFT group with high counselling efficacy. There was a significant two-way interaction effect of treatment and gender on CC (F(2;87) = 12.19; partial η2 = 0.25) in favour of female counsellors from SFT group. The two-way interaction effect of gender and counselling efficacy and three-way interaction effect of treatment, counselling efficacy and gender were not significant. Solution-Focused and Motivational Interviewing Therapies enhanced Counsellors’ Competence in secondary schools in Ibadan, Nigeria. School and counselling psychologists, particularly males should adopt these therapies to improve their Counselling Competence.