What is Guidance?

What is Guidance?

Guidance is a general term which means helping people to make wise choices and solve their educational, vocational and personal problems. It is a process by which individual are assisted in making adequate adjustments to life’s situation. Guidance can be explained as assistance made by competent counselor to an individual of any group to help him/ her direct the life, develop a point of view, make decisions and be better adjusted.

Guidance is an assistance given to an individual through various procedure so that he is able to understand the social requirement and opportunities and to know the ways and means to adjust himself to these. It is a service which also aims at providing the individual relevant and necessary information about himself and also about the world around him.

Guidance refers to the act or process of guiding. It is a process of helping every individual through his own efforts to discover and develop his potentialities. Ruth Strang highlighted four important characteristics of the process of guidance.

• It is a process of gaining understanding of oneself,
• It is a process of gaining understanding of gaining of ones’ relationship with other people,
• It is a process of gaining understanding of solving personal problems,
• It is a process of gaining understanding of making decisions.
• It is giving direction for future actions.

Guidance is a type of counselling such as that provided for students seeking advice about vocational and educational matters. Guidance is a continuous process required at every stage for every person. It is a program geared to meet the needs of all people. It is needed right from childhood to adolescent to old age.

Guidance is an organized set of specialized services established as an integral part of education system designed to promote development of student and to assist them in realization of goals of life. It is both generalized and specialized service. It is a generalized service because teachers, lecturers, advisors, deans, parents and elders, all play a part in guidance.

It is a generic term as it includes information giving and research activities. It is a specialized service because specially qualified personnel as counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists join hands to help Individuals to adjust to the environment.

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Definitions of Guidance

The term guidance has been severally defined by several psychologists. Some important definitions has been provided in the following paragraph.

According to Jones, “ Guidance is a personal help that is given by one person to another in developing life goals, in making adjustments and solving problems that confront him in attainment of goals.

blems that confront him in attainment of goals. “Guidance is a process of helping every individual through his own efforts, to discover and develop his potentialities for his personal happiness and social usefulness.” – Ruth Strang

“Guidance seeks to help an individual discover his own talents in comparison to the opportunities of the world and help him prepare himself so that he can he can find or develop a place in which he can live a well balanced life and contribute his part to the welfare of his fellow men” – Chishorlm

“Guidance is a contentious and pervasive process as a favourable directional influence upon appropriate social behavior, personal effectiveness in every day affairs, academic competence and progress and assimilation of right values and attitude’’ – Mathewson

“Guidance is a process through which individual or groups of individuals are helped to make necessary adjustment to the environment inside or out side the school’’ – Proctor

These definitions indicate the following aspects of Guidance:

• Helping people to make wise choices when faced with various alternatives available.
  
  
• Helping people to solve their educational, vocational and personal problems as efficiently as possible.
  
  
• Helping people to make adequate adjustments in life’s situation.
  
  
• Helping people to develop their potentialities optimally.
  
  
• Helping people to acquire more reliable information about the world of work.
  
  
• Helping people to live a balanced and tension free life with full satisfaction under the circumstances.
  
  
• Helping people to satisfy their needs most effectively and efficiently in most desirable way.

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Nature and scope of Guidance

Following is the nature of guidance:

Guidance is continuous and sequential Process

Guidance does not occupy independent place. The chief aim of this process is to assist in the development of an individual in view the social needs. Guidance is a process. Here it is important to point out that process of guidance never ceases. It remains dynamic.

In this process an individual understand himself, learn to use maximum his own capacities, interest and other abilities. He continues his struggle for adjustment in different situation. He develops his capacity of decision making. Hence we see that it is a non stop process. The process of guidance is related to life. Formally or informally in both formal and informal occasions a person gets informal guidance from his friends and relatives.

Guidance aims at holistic development of an individual

During the process of guidance the individual is assisted in such a way that he makes himself in a world to develop is capacities maximum from all angles. Hence guidance stresses the complete development of of possibilities present in an individual and become familiar with his real image hence guidance is helpful in self realization. Guidance aims at development of a person as a whole.

Guidance is based on individual assistance and cooperation

Guidance is accepted as individualized help through guidance. An individual is provided a direction and not to a group. It is a process of individualized assistance. Guidance is based on the principle that every individual different from the other and that every person is unique. Guidance is based on cooperation in the sense that every person seeking help must be ready to cooperate with the one ready to provide help for best result. Guidance cannot be forced upon individual.

Guidance requires trained personnel

Providing guidance is not a function of all persons because various techniques and skills are to be used in it. Everybody does not possess the knowledge of the same for this task trained persons, psychologist and counselors are required. Hence guidance is a skill involved process.

No imposition of ones’ view point

One of the main characteristics of guidance is not to impose one’s viewpoint on others. it depends upon the wish of an individual how he acquired benefit by accepting the decision of the guidance worker. if he wishes he may deny to accept such decisions of the guidance worker hence it is not a process of imposing the decisions.

Guidance as an educational service

The nature of guidance also includes educational touch it has been defined as educational service the meaning of guidance is explained in the context of problems occurred in the field of education and in the context of adjustment in the school environment.

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Need and Importance of Guidance

All round development of the student

Intellectual development through the teaching of the subject along cannot lead to total development of the student. What is needed is some method of helping students to understand themselves and helping teachers to understand the students. This is done through a program of guidance. All round development of the student requires that individual differences among students are accepted and understood and all types of experiences are so organised in an institution as to contribute to their overall development.

Proper choice of courses

Everyone knows that our education system has grown hap hazard. While humanities and liberal arts are subjects most frequently offered and taken both in the colleges and Universities. These are the oldest and relatively inexpensive areas of knowledge taken because they required no specified intellectual equipment.

Hence thousands of young men educated in this Liberal Arts are without jobs. For the best development of individual and growth of society the process of herding youths into educational disciplines and connected with their attitude must be checked through a scientific process of guidance and counselling.

Proper choice of careers

Ours’ is a highly complex and rapidly changing world of work. The changing requirement in industrial jobs, altered market conditions for professional power, the development of para professional occupations and many other labour market trends are making occupational selection more difficult than ever.

Students in college and Universities must be informed about various available jobs and openings and the requirements, responsibilities and the nature of work involved in them so that they could measure themselves up to them and develop and crystallized their occupation goals.They should be help in making meaningful occupational selection be prepared for an entry into them to have a fulfilling and rewarding career.

Vocational development

The process of vocational development covers almost the entire span of life of an individual. It begins quite early in one’s life and continues sometimes after retirement. In this process the individual passes through growth, exploration, maintenance and decline.

Guidance services are provided at the college and universities to help the students in the process of vocational development by making it possible for them to gain knowledge about themselves, their abilities, interest and needs and knowledge about the world of work. Their transition from education to work can be facilitated by providing them opportunities for self exploration as well as exploration of the world of work while they are still in an educational institution.

Development of abilities to face new challenges

Guidance services are needed to develop in the students the ability to cope with their new problems and concerns so that they become more competent to meet the demands which will be made upon them in the future.

Minimize the mismatch between education and employment and help in efficient use of manpower

Most of the young men and women have no clear objectives or career targets. They go through university courses for learning without requiring much knowledge for preparing themselves for an uncertain future.

The employment of workers is ill suited to their jobs leads to a higher rate of labour placement or to the retention of persons who are inefficient. This is a huge wastage of scant resources. Guidance facilities may help in reducing this wastage and ensure efficient use of Manpower.

Motivate the youth for self employment

Considering the magnitude of educated job seekers flowing into the job market every year a sizeable fraction of enterprising youth should be initiated into areas of self employment.Some arrangements needs to be instituted in the college and universities to identify the deserving cases fit to take up self-employment.

They must be educated on how to proceed about the job of setting up a venture. They must be help through the cooperation of the concerned agencies in this sphere to prepare technically sound and economically viable projects. Agencies must sponsor their cases to the banks for loan assistance and guide them to overcome the teething trouble through effective follow-up after the commencement of the venture. All this requires guidance.

Helping the students in period of turmoil and confusion

Normally all the students undergo a great deal to turmoil and searching to give meaning to their lives. They have their conflicts and anxieties. They are disillusioned regarding higher education. They find that instead of imparting them education college and university is just enable them to pass examination.

They feel lost and when this education does not enable them to get immediate employment. They have their personal conflict and anxieties about their parents and family. They have problem of adjusting their personality to the world of people. To tackle all these situation successfully they need someone to sort out the strands. This is done through guidance.

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Techniques of Guidance

This is one of the most commonly used techniques of guidance today.

This term was not used before 1925. Cumulative record denotes a large record with successive additions. These records are kept years after years regarding significant aspect of a students’ life. A cumulative record is a collection of information about a student and constitutes a picture of his development- physically, academically and socially. As these records are giving year to year record, they can give a clear picture of changes in individual’s life. As the child grows older, there is changing pattern of interests, personality, behaviour and interpersonal relations. Isolated facts are unreliable and mean little.

Generally, the following information is taken in to account according to Downing:

• Personal data – name and address and related information
• Family data
• Health data
• Learning- aptitude test results, achievement test results
• Grades earned
• Special school activities
• Special interests achievements and talents
• Out of school interests, achievements and talents
• Entry and withdrawal records
• Educational and vocational plans
• Follow up record

According to Segel, the items to be included in any cumulative record can be classified in some categories. The most frequent items are:

• Academic achievement
• School progress in various aspects
• Attendance
• Entrance and withdrawal
• Home conditions and family history
• Test results like intelligence
• Social and character rating
• Health status

Single facts if studied in isolation do not mean anything and especially the relation between various facts also can not be interpreted clearly. Like for example the child who was not well did not achieve as usual is understandable or the child who is transferred to from rural area to urban may show emotional problems can be interpreted in a better way. That is why facts should be studied together.

These records are kept for the whole educational life of the students. Cumulative record helps the teacher to function more effectively. Cumulative records include basic information, which is useful to understand trend of development.

As each guidance worker can develop his own cumulative record sheet, different forms of cumulative record having various different items are available. However, if there is a particular fixed type, give and take of information becomes easier.

Cumulative record is in a way a technique to pull all the facts together that are essentially relevant as a sound basis of guidance. This information should be recorded by a trained teacher and kept confidential.

As per the basic principles of psychology, we should not compare any individual child with any other child. If at all we want to compare the child’s achievement with some standard, we can compare it with child’s own past achievement. Cumulative record gives an opportunity to do it at a glance. We can also find out the intra individual differences like ups and downs of achievements in various subjects through years. Graphs plotted to show various types of growth and development along with achievements show differences in that. We are capable of predicting the future of the child.

Some cumulative records take into consideration subject wise achievements, trait wise description of behaviour. It depends on the awareness of the school authorities and importance given to various points.

Cumulative record accepts the concept of the student as a developing organism. It is like a motion picture of development of the individual. It bridges the gap between understanding of the individual from one stage of education to other like primary, secondary, college and university. Data is available in chronological level.

Cumulative record gives reliable and objective information worth considering for guidance and counselling. It is the indicator of school’s desire to understand every student. Causes of their difficulties and indicators of the opportunities and experiences necessary for their development are obviously seen from cumulative records.

Some cumulative records also include anecdotal records. For judging any anecdotal record we must see that where it:

• Contains all relevant items necessary to judge all sided development of student
• Organised as a growth records and show trends of development
• Is vivid and dynamic
• Present the test results in comparative and meaningful way.
• Interpreted the information by a person who knows the child
• Is convenient and clear

Confidentiality of these records should be maintained. Anyone, who is not mature enough to understand this, should not be allowed to read the information. No confidential record should be attached to the file. Only name of the individual having that information should be written.

Uses of cumulative record are as follows:

• Guiding individuals’ development by achieving self-understanding by the student and understanding the student by the counsellor.
• Identifying talents and limitations
• Detecting maladjustment
• Dealing with personal problems and crises
• Making plans placements and referrals.
• Case conferences with parents and experts
• Making the teacher child conscious

Anecdotal Records

Anecdotal records are also equally useful for guidance and counselling. Cooperation of the whole staff is essential for anecdotal record. It is related to some behaviour of the student. It was first published in 1928 by American Council of Education. Anecdotal record is defined as a specialised form of incidental observation. It is a description of child’s behaviour and personality in terms of frequent, brief and concrete observations of pupil made and recorded by a teacher. It is a report of significant episodes in the life of a student.

These episodes are from daily life of a student. It is in a way a word picture of the student in action. Teacher may take into account only striking behaviour of the student and not the one that is characteristic of the individual. Anecdotal report s a report of facts done accurately and objectively as well as dispassionately. Facts and opinions should not be mixed. Let us take for example a common behavioural pattern.

‘Sameer came late today. He was looking tired and uneasy. His uniform was untidy and hair unkept. He is a lazy boy.’

Here the last sentence is an opinion may or may not be true. The anecdotal report should be written in a systematic way in three parts.

• It should include objective report of what took place. It should be brief and clear.
• Interpretation should be separated from facts.
• Recommendations should be written so that the guidance worker may get the perception of teacher.

If someone wants to get only objective information the expert may read only first part. Keeping anecdotal record is a continuous process. We are not supposed to use information from any single anecdotal record. Many anecdotal records written by different teachers should be interpreted together. Along with negative incidents, we must also consider positive behaviour of the individual. It is recommended that anecdotal record should be kept for each and every student.

Flexibility is one of the most important features of anecdotal record. Hence, it is not necessary to have a standardised format of anecdotal record. By and large, anecdotal records are written by teachers, as they get more opportunities to observe the students. As many anecdotal records as possible should be written to gain better insight in individual’s life and problems. If there is nothing striking about a child, then actually that child needs close attention to understand more about his actual problems and life in general. May be that this child needs more help.

Anecdotal record does not require a particular fixed format and elaborate forms. Even a small card or half sheet of paper is enough to write an anecdotal record.

Date Place Incidence Comment
Date Place Incidence Comment
Date Place Incidence Comment

Like that, many anecdotal records can be written together. The teacher is to write anecdotal records by the end of the day. Various anecdotal records written by different teachers are brought together, compared and used for further interpretations and for conferences. As reading all the anecdotal records and making them meaningful is time consuming, monthly summaries should be written by the counsellor.

There are few limitations of anecdotal record. Basically, it is useful only if it is written accurately and objectively. Faulty observations and partial descriptions along with biased focused observations will be of no use. It is a difficult job for many teachers to write objective reports but it should be as objective as an x ray.

If it is used to justify teacher’s behaviour, it becomes useless. Hence, if the teacher thinks that there is any emotional reaction then the teacher should not write anything about that incident. If we interpret any single piece of behaviour without knowing the context, it will lead to misinterpretations. So, background information and information about context must be given in short. For example, in a group, we behave in a different way and in a different style when we go for a trip.

Small number of anecdotal records should not be used for final interpretation. There may be some temporary cause behind a particular type of behaviour, which may vanish in due course of time. Anecdotal records should not stress unfortunate behaviour patterns. If at all it is necessary to record some, we have to keep them as confidential records. Even if there is something wrong about students’ behaviour, no impression should be crystallised.

Anecdotal records are valuable as they give us a picture of unconstrained behaviour in natural diverse situations. As a consequence, it gives specific and exact description of personality. Teachers’ attention is attracted to all students depending on their behaviour. Different teachers are writing for the same student indicating their observations leading to all sided study of the individual.

This data is available for the school to see if many students are facing similar problems. If that information is interpreted properly, insight in problems regarding school policies can be achieved. If this data is shared with students they can get better self understanding. They can use this information for self appraisal. Improvement about curriculum, study habits of students and student teacher relations can be achieved with this data.

If similar anecdotal records are kept by all educational institutes, it becomes easy to forward the information to the next institute as the student enters in a new institute.

Case Conference

Case conference brings together all the professional school workers dealing with the child so that they may exchange information and make plans for enhancing the pupil’s opportunities. In school setting case conference may be attended by school nurse, various teachers involved in teaching the child, the principle and all other experts concerned about child’s problem. Parents also are invited to attend the case conference. This group reviews all the information available to them and try to understand each other’s perception of the problem.

They can discuss various angles of the problem clarify each other’s queries and together decide further plans and future referrals. The case that is in school we can think of a student- is also allowed to interact with all these experts for some time and is asked to leave when final interpretation takes place. The counsellor takes the final responsibility of this conference and plays the role of a chairperson. He is the one who is to consider all opinions and views and help the experts to arrive at a common decision and plan. This is a golden opportunity to have wholesome picture of the individual child.

One more technique is dissemination of information, which is essentially a group approach of vocational guidance. Here we are interested in giving relevant information regarding options available to the students in various fields of education and occupation. We can organise an exhibition of various charts showing information about what all branches of knowledge are open after completing tenth or completion of secondary school.

This information must include every thing which may be essential to actually enquire about the course i.e. prerequisite about percentage of marks or performance in entrance, address of the institute, names of the contact person, his or her e mail address, fees structure, number of years for which the course will continue, opportunities for job after completing that course and information about teachers and general status of the institute.