Influence of Peer Counseling on Students? Behaviour Change in Secondary Schools in Nakuru Municipality

Peer counseling has become an important and integral part of our secondary schools owing to the dynamism of education and the many problems facing secondary students. The need for peer counselors is one that cannot be overlooked owing to the fact that the teacher counselor is either one or non-existent in most schools. While researchers, educationists and other concerned parties have come to recognise the role of peers as primary socialisation agents among adolescents, they have not seriously questioned the role played by peer counselors in influencing behaviour change in Kenya. This study examined the influence of peer counseling on the behaviour change of secondary school students in Nakuru Municipality. The study adopted an ex-post facto research design. Twelve schools with a total population of 7438 students were identified as having active peer counseling programmes. A sample of 14 teacher counselors, 31 peer counselors and 131 students who have consulted peer counselors were chosen using stratified, purposive and simple random sampling techniques from 9 public and 3 private secondary schools. The pilot study was done for the purpose of establishing the reliability and the construct reliability of the instruments. The teacher counsellors, peer counsellors and students questionnaires were examined for face and construct validity by experts from the Department of Psychology. Their comments were used to improve the instruments before they were used in the actual study. The data was analysed by the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 for Windows. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe the data. The influence of the dependent variables on the independent variable was determined by testing the relationship using the Pearson Product Correlations Coefficient. The results of the study revealed that the training and resources for Peer Counselling were inadequate. The results also revealed that Peer Counselling influences students academic performance however it does not influence their social and emotional behaviour. The study recommended training of both teacher and peer counsellors and allocation of adequate funds and resources to school peer counselling programmes.