PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS AS PREDICTORS OF COUNSELLING COMPETENCIES OF PROSPECTIVE COUNSELLORS IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN EDO AND DELTA STATES

Abstract

This study investigated personality characteristics as predictors of counselling competencies of prospective counsellors in public universities in Edo and Delta States of Nigeria. The purpose of the study was to find out if personality characteristics predicts counsellor competencies of prospective counsellor in public Universities in Edo and Delta States.Two research questions were raised and one hypothesis was formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Survey research design adopting the correlational approach was used in this study. The population of the study comprised all Masters students in public universities in Edo and Delta States in the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 sessions who had completed practicum counselling course. A sample of 89 prospective counsellors was used for the study. The researcher used the Prospective Counsellors' Personality Characteristics Questionnaire (PCPCQ) adapted from the Big Five Personality Inventory BFPI) by John and Srivastava(1999) and Counsellor Personality Scale(CPS) developed by Alutu (2013). Reliability coefficients of 0.914, 0.630 ,0.818, 0.691, 0.607, were obtained for openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism respectively for the Counsellor Personality characteristics questionnaire subscale. 0.810, 0.896, 0.796 were obtained for knowledge, skills and behavioural sub-scales respectively for Counsellor Competency Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and Regression analysis were used for analysis of data and testing of hypothesis respectively. The outcomes of the study revealed the following: The level of counselling competencies of prospective counsellors in public universities in Edo and Delta States is high; The Big five personality characteristics do not significantly predict Counselling Competencies. It was therefore recommended that counsellor educators should teach the prospective counsellors the techniques and ethics guarding the profession since it has been proven that the big five personalities do not predict counselling competencies.