In recent times, college students who entered the colleges through entrance-focused education are unsatisfied with the college life and experience psychological maladjustment like a serious unemployment crisis and financial difficulties due to the har...
In recent times, college students who entered the colleges through entrance-focused education are unsatisfied with the college life and experience psychological maladjustment like a serious unemployment crisis and financial difficulties due to the hardship of life.
Thus, the role of college counseling centers that can support mental healthcare management for those students is very important. In order for college counseling from counseling centers to be a help to college students, the research on the relation between counseling readiness and the need for counseling service was done.
The subjects of this inquiry are as follows; First, ‘Is counseling readiness of college students different based on individual factors?’, ‘Is their need for counseling service different based on individual factors?’, ‘How about the relation between counseling readiness and the need for counseling service?’
To research the inquiry subjects above, questionnaires on counseling readiness, the need for counseling service, internal-external locus of control and stress coping styles were sent to college students and a total of 844 was used on the final analysis of the study.
Following is the results of the study. First, college students' counseling readiness was significantly different by sex, grade, internal-external locus of control or stress coping styles. Students who were female or who were in the upper grade or used internal locus of control or active coping style in the problematic situations were in the higher level of counseling readiness than who were male or who were in the lower grade or used external locus of control or passive coping style.
Second, the need for counseling service was different by sex; female students' need for counseling service like counselor, counseling methods and the counseling environment was higher than male students'. Also, the need for counseling service of junior students was higher than freshmens' and sophomores'. College students who were the type of internal locus of control and the active coping style in the problematic situations were higher in the need for counseling activity and its environment than the students of the external locus of control and the passive coping style.
Third, counseling readiness and the need for counseling service of college students were meaningfully correlated in all the subordinate fields. Clients' attitude and knowledge toward counseling were positively correlated with the subordinates to the need of counseling service. Counseling emotion was correlated with the counseling activity and the counseling environment, while it was negatively correlated with a counselor, methods or the contents of counseling.
This study is significant in that it gives information on identifying college students' need for counseling service by surveying what had not been studied on before and verifies the way for the better counseling results by analyzing differences of individual factors(sex, grade, external-internal locus of control, stress coping style) according to students' readiness and the need for counseling service. Also, it is expected that differentiated counseling services will be provided to college students based on their personal characteristics.