شبكة المعلومات العربية التربوية

A school counselor plays a crucial role in the life of any learner at any age. School – based counseling is a somewhat new service in Lebanon. It still needs to be addressed and shaped in order to maximize the benefit of those in need of this service. Not enough research has been done in Lebanon regarding the perceptions of teachers on school–based counseling, whose opinions is of great importance since school teachers are the ones in direct contact with both learner and counselor. This study aims at investigating the perceptions of school teachers on a school-based program in one private school located in Beirut. Three research questions are addressed in this study: (a) what are teachers’ perceptions of the school–based program on students’ behavior? (b) What are the weaknesses and strengths of the counseling program; and (c) what steps and procedures are needed for effective counseling program? This is a case study following a mixed method approach aiming at investigating and understanding the perceptions of the participant teachers for improving school–based counseling program. A questionnaire was distributed among over 140 elementary, middle and high school teachers electronically. Sixty six (66) teachers responded to the questionnaire. In-depth individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 6 teachers, and 3 focus group discussions (FGDs) took place with teachers in the elementary, middle and secondary schools. Each group involved 10 teachers. Finally, semi–structured interviews were conducted with the two counselors at the school. The collected quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative collected data were interpreted. The main findings of this study was that teachers had mixed perceptions towards school counseling programs due to them being left ‘in the dark’ when it came to the service. The teachers had minimal knowledge about the service, how it is delivered, the students being referred to the counselor and the progress of each case if any. The elementary teachers were the main contributors to the strengths of the service in this study whereas the middle and high school teachers had opinions that are more negative. In order to render the service a more effective one, the teachers made several suggestions mainly having a clear systematic school counseling core curriculum that would help reach tangible results evident to the teachers. Collaboration between the teachers and the counselors was one of the main findings. The teachers had several ideas for the counselors that would help the students, evoke their interests, and avoid having them get into trouble. (Author’s abstract)