The Impact of Attitudes toward Online Counseling on the Emotional Well-Being of Distance Learners at Knust

Abstract

Web-based counseling is a cutting-edge delivery method that can reach college students who might not seek aid in person. Distance learning requires that learners access academic services remotely from the institution of study. Thus, academic services and support services such as counseling are remotely accessed. Due to the remote learning nature of distance learning, remote counseling or online counseling is the way to go. This study sought to understand the impact of attitudes toward online counseling services on improving the emotional well-being of distance students. The approach to the study is a quantitative research design using the adapted and shaped Positive Emotional Well-being Scale (PEWS) and the adapted and shaped Online Counseling Scale (OCS) questionnaire, which represents the average value on the Likert scale for online counseling was used to help evaluate the weak and strong perceptions regarding attitudes toward online counseling. The purposive sampling technique was used to select 354 students who were distance learners at KNUST. A Pearson correlation coefficient was computed to determine the relationship between Attitudes toward Online Counseling and Emotional Well-being scores. The variables Attitudes toward Online Counseling and Emotional Well-being were found to be strongly correlated, r (354) = .587, p < .0001. In all, there was a significant positive relationship between Attitudes toward Online Counseling and Emotional well-being among distance learners at KNUST. Findings, therefore, showed that a positive and strong attitude toward online counseling is significant in resolving the emotional well-being concerns of distance learning students at KNUST.