Abstract

This study was conducted to explore and compare perceptions of Subject Specialist Teachers about their role as a humanistic student guide. Subject specialists were taken from 28 male and 13 female higher secondary schools situated in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. Structured questionnaire was used for data collection. As per the data analysis, it was concluded that most of the teachers did not possess proper awareness f a humanistic approach for the guidance of the student. Student guidance was almost absent due to lack of skills, resources, time specification for the purpose of the school administration and expertise. It was noticed that the situation in female higher secondary schools was almost the same as it was noted in the male schools as no significant difference of perception was found among male and female teachers. There was a need for proper training, and provision of resources for an appropriate guidance of the students.

Key Words

Teachers, Guidance, Students, Humanistic Approach

Introduction

It is a reality that guidance and counselling play important role at school level to shape the personalities of students, curb negative ideas developed by society, peers and parents; develop various programmes for success of all students, assess effectives of the launched programmes in schools at various stages, enhance teaching skills of teachers, help students in adjustment at schools, society and profession; develop sense of responsibility in students to face the challenges of life, polish their decision making powers to be the leaders in practical life, realize students their potential to do things properly and fast, teach them emotional intelligence, shape their attitudes toward other humans as respected and respectable beings, facilitate students in exploration and development of careers, enhance personal development of students to be good humans for themselves and for other humans so guidance and counselling may be give due attention to make teaching and learning process successful, humanistic and practical life oriented (Gysbers, 2006) as school age comprised of distrust, meaninglessness, egocentrism, pessimism, anxiety, low interest in studies, hostility, drop put and maladjustment, therefore, the effective teachers do understand guidance, its nature and techniques, apply various techniques not only for academic achievement of their students but also help learners to be good humans, lovers of humanity, well-adjusted in schools, societies, practical life and empowered with all skills necessary for successful life (Sullivan, & Richardson, 2011). 

The job of guidance and counselling is the self-realization of human potential in the educational setting for the benefit of society, individuals and all humanity as it has been stated that the school counsellor is responsible for the all-round and maximum development of human stuff, polish mental abilities to the brim, assist students to harmonize intellectual, moral, social, academic, spiritual abilities of students with their interests, values, perceptions, goals and plans to meet the challenges of life so effective teachers must have knowledge of their subject matter and they may be able to inspire students toward getting new skills and information in education so students may feel well-adjusted in their schools as well as in their expected professional fields (McArthur, Cooper & Berdondini 2013). 

Counselling is a process of assisting the humans who are in some sort of trouble by an expert who analyse the trouble properly and provide the solution indirectly instead mere verbal advice or teaching as the counsellor helps the students to understand the situation, overcome their problems, manage  their inabilities, cope the difficulties, make them successful, comfortable, peaceful, friendly, humanistic, caring, cordial and respectful in the environment of higher secondary schools so it is very necessary to know and compare the perceptions of teachers who are teaching in  higher secondary schools of district Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan about teachers’ humanistic role concerning students’ proper guidance to build up and polish human stuff as good and skilful humans working for humanity (Nasir, Hashmi, Siddique, Adnan and Kanwal, 2017).

Guidance is a very comprehensive term and counselling is its part and a guide listen students attentively, understand them will all their individual difference, solve academic problems, solve emotional problems,  solve social problems, provide help in vocational and professional maturity, help students to make decisions independently, develop a sense of responsibility, provide holistic development to all students, make students well-adjusted in new environment of educational institutes, inculcate positive learning habits, address needs of students, offer art of better living, cope with stress, handle drug abuse, proper use of leisure time, minimize indiscipline in schools, make students believe that humans are supreme and dignified beings and a teacher can better serve humanity if he follows the above mentioned principles in his teaching process in the environment of higher secondary schools of District Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and can make their teaching style very humanistic to serve humanity well (Denga, 2004) .



Problem Statement

The problem under investigation was “teachers’ humanistic role regarding students’ guidance”




Research Objective

To explore and compare teachers’ perceptions regarding teachers’ humanistic role in the perspective of students’ guidance at higher secondary school level was the objective of the study.




Listen to Students Attentively Through Ears and Eyes

If a teacher wants to be an effective teacher, influential leader, closer to his students, expert of his profession, best server of humanity, a trustworthy teacher, a humanistic guide then attentive listening has the magical power to achieve all these characteristic effectively and swiftly so it is necessary for teachers that they may listen students very attentively, hear what students are saying beneath the words, focus on content as well as presentation style of students; understand the motives of speakers, observe the body language of their students completely, do effective eye contact with their students, minimize the external distraction, respond them appropriately, keep an open mind to get better understanding of their students because they are responsible to provide guidance services to their students, help them to develop various aspects of the personalities, bring them out of stress, cope with various problem of their students successfully, give them wisdom to deal with vocation and profession; keep improved relationship with them, avoid misunderstanding in their conversation, give them advice to be on the right track, support them to get rid of abuse and make them well-adjusted in educational environment but unfortunately, teachers never bother to use these techniques during teaching learning sessions in schools hence they never become successful to listen students carefully and guide them properly (Whitehorne, 2010). 

Observation, listening through eyes is the process of getting data from gestures and movements of students in the educational setting of schools which enables teachers to monitor and record the weaknesses of students, their powerful areas, interests, mental health, tendencies, development and important changes in their behaviours over time to be able to fulfil the needs of students, solve the problems of their students, enable them to make apt and right decisions about life and profession, address their weak areas to make them powerful, overcome psychological issues for improvements in all aspects of personality but subject specialists working at the higher secondary level are too busy in teaching activities, lectures, presentations, assignments that they only focus on teaching material, memorization and reproduction instead of students, their problems, their success and their overall improvement (Forman, & Hall 2013). 




Understanding Students with Individual Differences

Students are classified by age, race, sex, mental age, social class, family background, learning pace, physical differences, achievement abilities, economic status, emotional health, intelligence in the class and teachers study and understand their students based on these differences to teach and guide students properly to make them successful in their academic, social and professional life as good humans who are ready to serve humanity across all boundaries and at all stages to make the world a peaceful place for all. It is a reality that no two individuals are duplicates as they vary from each other based on gender, intelligence, personality traits, heredity, environment, body size, IQ, developmental speed, stability in behaviour, motivation level, values, self-concept, self-efficacy, self-esteem, caste, class and family background since it becomes clear that learning experience, guidance and adequate schooling are not an easy job for teachers unless they are well aware of capacities, abilities, interests, tendencies, likes, dislikes, aptitudes and personality traits of individuals as humans and students to take them toward success and excellence but teachers do not pay attention properly to these differences though they are fully aware of these differences because there are twenty different faces of each student and number of students is 40 to 60 in each class hence it becomes difficult for them in such a mob to teach and guide all students keeping all these differences in the context. It a fact that these differences in students become apparent over time, with the improvement in academics and growth and  teachers remain unable to guide students properly because individual differences are immense and various in each student and classrooms are overcrowded at higher secondary level though these difference are cornerstone area of modern human psychology, the most important aspect of human education, the most indispensable element of human learning, and the greatest portion of human guidance (Nazimuddin, 2015)

Academic Problems

The most common issues faced by school students are lack of time, lack of skills, drop out, unawareness about subjects, scarcity of resources, no interest in studies and weakness in evaluation methods and teachers must be efficient enough that they may examine their students in school setting completely and provide guidance accordingly to promote achievement and to make students successful academically but school teachers remain indifferent to the nature of academic advising programs at school level as the advising in academics is the essential administrative responsibility of school faculty to encourage students to engage in systematic strategic planning process; to be available to students to listen to them politely and attentively; to serve as a mentor for their junior colleagues; develop a cordial relationship between teachers and students; give them tips to get more marks and guide them to manage time properly (Paisley, & Hayes, 2003). 

It has been studied that academic counselling has a very significant effects on the achievement of school students; there is very positive relationship between academic advising and academic planning; it has been identified that retention, adjustment and satisfaction of school students have been increased to the maximum level through appropriate school academic counselling; there is a positive relationship between school counselling services and students’ low drop out from the schools and there is a stronger correlation between students’ participation in academic activities and academic problem solving offered by the school counsellors but students are deprived of academic counselling at the school level; they do not have counsellors in their schools and their teachers are showing negligence to this important aspect of students’ achievement so students must be provided proper academic advising at easy access in all schools (Al-Khafaji, (2017). 

Make Students Social

Students become social through learning social skills like helping people (cooperation), initiating behaviours (assertion), communication with adults and demonstration of care (responsibility), respect the feelings of others around (Empathy), ability to deal various social situations successfully (social competence) and ability to respond properly in conflict matters (self-control). These social skills help students to interact with fellow beings around them in their respective societies and these social skills are the important factor of students’ acceptance in society, popularity in peers, ability to deal with other humans in critical situations and get excellent academic achievement and teachers are the humans who teach them these skills, help them learn these skills and provide them opportunities to practise these skills to make them all-rounder in the social practical field. It has been discovered that social goals are strongly correlated with academic goals; students’ social competence, cooperation with peers, acceptance by others, creating and sustaining friendship and empathy are the essential elements of students’ success; students’ social skills have a strong association with students’ academic achievement; rejection by peers is related to problems in the area of social functioning as well as missing academic goals; a higher degree of sociability is linked with a higher degree of problem solving and socially desirable behaviour is clearly related to primary school students’ academic achievement but teachers never remained focused on developing social skills in their students to make them leaders and models in their respective social settings and it has been diagnosed that teachers punish  boys more severely than girls for misbehaviours (Pe?jak, Puklek Levpuš?ek, Valen?i?Zuljan, Kalin, & Peklaj, 2009)




Stress 

Stress has been considered as the major problem of students around the world as it is the second largest cause of mental and physical sickness among students in various countries of the world and researches have measured 58 percent increase in stress-related mental health issues in students so the teachers must be trained enough that that they may support them to release their stress and make them healthy to make progress in creations and serve the humanity as the origin of stress comes from physics which refers to force applied on an object and  it is related to issues like financial problems, personal conflicts, mental conflicts, health problems, examination problems, meeting with new friends, daily travelling from towns to cities, changes in sleeping habits and routines, poor eating habits, large amount of assignments, getting lower than expected grade, no proper management of time for studies and exercise, language difficulties, subject difficulties and academic workloads that put force on humans in real life and school  setting, make the learning pace slow, make students uninterested in studies, become the cause of maladjustment of students in schools, enhance poor achievement in exams, increase the dropout rate and lead towards suicide in some severe cases hence teachers must be equipped with various techniques of psychological guidance to promote the emotional wellbeing of students in schools, promote positive mental health, prevent the onset of serious problems, respond students properly in distress and give awareness about the negative impacts of stress but unfortunately teachers remain busy in academic activities, taking classes, performing practical, making attendance, attending workshops and seminars, attending meeting with officials, checking homework and scripts, making papers, conducting exams as a result they don’t have time to help their students during stress, depression, anxiety and mental health problems that lead  ultimately to complete academic failure (Kassymova, Kosherbayeva, Sangilbayev & Schachl, 2018, September)




Motivation

Motivation is the most essential component of students’ learning; it compels them to take part in learning activities and processes to get excellent success; it is related with the students’ involvement in educational undertakings; it is an important factor of learning and success of all students from childhood to adolescence; it is connected to a range of results like curiosity, persistence, hard work, commitment, creativity, regularity, punctuality, involvement, satisfaction and success because motivation plays very important role in students’ intention to learn, desire to learn essential skills, become competent, get new experiences, have training to face challenges, achieve success and teachers have been discovered to inculcate goal motivations in their students effectively to make them lover of studies, humanity and research; involve them in productive and creative activities,  engage them in social interactions, help them building self-concept, explain them socially accepted behaviours and build positive bond of relationship with students to enhance self-efficacy of students in academics as confidence and motivation are increased with good relationship between teachers and students but research studies reveal that teachers don’t study their students deeply, never try to understand their expectation minutely, never bother to enhance the motivational level of their students due to increased number of students in the classes and their own heavy workload schedules. The motivation of students is closely linked with teachers’ expectations about students so when teachers’ have high expectations about students’ performance then their performance becomes excellent and when teachers have low expectations about students’ performance then students’ performance becomes poor and low (Kariuki, & Mbugua, 2018). 




Self Confidence

Self-confidence plays a very crucial role in academic performance and there is a very strong correlation between self-confidence and students’ academic success at  the school level because self-confidence is explained as a belief in your abilities to perform well, a force to face challenges and hurdles in the academic process, an extreme desire to proceed ahead and a firm belief to accomplish a given task (Komarraju & Nadler, 2013). Self-image, Self-efficacy, and self-esteem are essential ingredients of self-confidence and self-confidence demonstrate the strongest effect on performance, helps students to achieve the highest goals, operates indirectly on features such as aspirations and goals, provides force and firmness to commitment, covers and shelters all weaknesses and self-confidence is increased with encompassing feedback, social appreciation and encouragement by teachers in the school setting. It has been discovered that students supported with positive feedback, loud appraisal and continuous encouragement by their teachers perform excellent things, strive to achieve challenging goals, remain persistent through thick and thin,  go through difficult and harsh obstacles and ultimately win name and fame for themselves and for the nation as well but students having poor feedback, negative remarks and no encouragement from their teachers show no good performance in academics, avoid difficult tasks, remain reluctant to take responsibility, feel shy, imitate and copy others and have no commitment to face challenges and obstacles instead they always remain dependent and low performers (Ballane, 2019). 




Career Counselling

Teachers are responsible to provide career counselling to their students to make them able to choose and select career for their practical life as the whole process of education is the preparation for the practical life to be beneficial to themselves, family, relatives, people around, community, country and all humanity and students take their teachers as role models and give immense value to their guidance, advice and remarks related to subjects and career choice but the teachers were found guiding students towards the subjects because they were teaching without studying students’ gender ,aptitude, interests, inherent strengths, tendencies, market demand and market analysis so teachers remained unsuccessful to guide students properly in selection of careers as their counselling sans depth and maturity, proper understanding of the counselee and shortage of time killed the career of students as they did not provide career counselling at all or they provided them career counselling without proper expertise, skills, experience, observation, updated knowledge and market analysis (Khan, Murtaza, & Shafa, 2012)




Maintaining Record

It is a fact that school administrator is responsible to maintain the record completely as records provide a lot of information to the members of the schools to make decisions for the betterment of schools, teachers and students so experts assess the progress of the schools in the light of the information provided by school records because these records are an essential element for effective and creative planning, effective implementation of the proper course of action to get excellence in human service, educational goals and academic success so record must be arranged, true, accessible, original, comprehensive, correct and secured  for the progress of the school upward, cooperation between staff, administration and students; supervision and guidance of students, inspiration and innovation, delegation of authority, control and discipline, motivation and communication, effective planning and useful decisions and adequate provision of manpower for school, society, nation and the country but the administration is involved to keep a record that consists of students’ attendance, staff attendance, cashbook, inspection report file, stock register, admission and struck off record but no record about students’ problems, punishment, changes in their behaviours, causes for those changes and their overall development, (Dorcas, 2013).



Procedure

The data of the current research was collected through a validated (validated by 10 experts of education and guidance) questionnaire devised by the researcher as the questionnaire is a tool invented by Sir Fransis Galton to collect data from a large number of scattered respondents easily and quickly without wasting resources like time and money and the questionnaire was consisted of 9 items- listen students attentively through eyes and ears, understand students with individual differences, solve academic problems, make students social, defeat tress,  make students motivated, enhance students self-confidence, provide career counselling to students and maintain record of all these things (as shown in the theoretical framework in the table given above) to serve individuals, community, nation and all humanity so the questionnaires were distributed among the respondents, gathered back, arranged, analysed and the results were presented about teachers’ humanistic role in perspective of students’ guidance (Wango, 2006).

 

Population

The population has been defined as individuals of same species with same qualities living within a given area (Trochim, & Donnelly, 2001) so all 41 higher secondary schools (28 higher secondary schools and 13 girls higher secondary schools) were included as the total population of the study and all the male subject specialist teaching in government higher secondary schools and all the female subject specialists teaching in government girls higher secondary schools situated in District Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan were the population of the current research study. The total population of the study was 368 subject specialists (265 male subject specialists and 103 female subject specialists as shown in the table below)

Gender	Schools	Subject Specialists
Male SS	28	265
Female SS	13	103
Total	41	368

(REMIS, 2017-18)

Sample

A sample must be a true sample and perfect representative of the total population and it helps the researcher to avoid the chances of error so total 246 SS teachers ( 160 male teachers from 28 Government Higher Secondary schools, 6 SS teachers from each school and 86 female teachers from 13 Government Girls Higher secondary schools, 7 teachers from each school) were selected through simple random technique following the famous table of Krejci & Morgan (1970) to get guidance for determining sample size as the true representative of the total population without chances of error. (See the table below for sample size)

Gender	No of Schools	Subject Specialists
Male Teachers	.28	160
Female Teachers	.13	86
Total	.41	246

The researcher distributed 168 questionnaires among male subject specialists and 91 female subject specialist, got back 246 questionnaires from the respondents, arranged the gathered data properly, analysed through percentage, mean, standard deviation and T-test, got results, presented the results in tables, drew the conclusion and recommended implications about teachers’ humanistic role in the field of guidance and counselling at the school level to make teaching and learning process effective, make educational procedure meaningful and make students humane and lovers of humanity.

Results

The detail of results is given below.

Table 1. Detailed Description of Results about Teachers’ Humanistic role Regarding Guiding Students Properly with 0.05 level of Significance

S#	Teacher	Gender	N	Mean	S.D	P-value
1.	Listen to students attentively	Male	160	2.23	0.114	0.1868
		Female	86	2.25	0.111
2.	Understand students with individual differences	Male	160	2.12	0.116	0.5246
		Female	86	2.13	0.120
3.	Solve their academic problems	Male	160	2.01	0.199	0.668
		Female	86	2.00	0.115
4.	Make them social	Male	160	1.99	0.212	0.4868
		Female	86	1.97	0.220
5.	Help them to defeat stress	Male	160	2.01	0.200	0.4654
		Female	86	1.99	0.213
6.	Make them motivated	Male	160	2.51	0.104	0.1614
		Female	86	2.49	0.111
7.	Improve their self-confidence	Male	160	2.50	0.105	0.619
		Female	86	2.51	0.210
8.	Provide them career guidance	Male	160	1.98	0.219	0.7334
		Female	86	1.97	0.220
9.	Maintain a record of students’ counselling	Male	160	2.44	0.103	0.4672
		Female	86	2.45	0.102



1.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 1 were 2.23 & 2.25 with SD 0.114 & 0.111 correspondingly that made known that their responses were not positive about item no 1 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.1886that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of listening students attentively through eyes and ears for their proper guidance properly at the school level.

2.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 2 were 2.12 & 2.13 with SD 0.116 & 0.120 correspondingly that made known that their responses were negative about item no 2 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.5246 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of understanding students with individual differences for their proper guidance at the school level.

3.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 3 were 2.01 & 2.00 with SD 0.199 & 0.115 correspondingly that made known that their responses were not positive about item no 3 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.668 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of solving students’ academic problems through proper guidance at the school level.

4.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 4 were 1.99 & 1.97 with SD 0.212 & 0.220 correspondingly that made known that their responses were negative about item no 4 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.4868 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of making students social through proper guidance at the school level.

5.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 5 were 2.01 & 1.99 with SD 0.200 & 0.213 correspondingly that made known that their responses were not positive about item no 5 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.4654 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of helping students to defeat stress through proper guidance at the school level.

6.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 6 were 2.51 & 2.49 with SD 0.104 & 0.111 correspondingly that made known that their responses were almost negative about item no 6 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.1614 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of making students motivated through proper guidance at the school level.

7.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 7 were 2.50 & 2.51 with SD 0.105& 0.210 correspondingly that made known that their responses were not positive about item no 7 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.619 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of improving students’ self-confidence through proper guidance at the school level.

8.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 8 were 1.98 & 1.97 with SD 0.219 & 0.220 correspondingly that made known that their responses were negative about item no 8 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.7334 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of providing students career counselling because it was an aspect of proper guidance at the school level.

9.     The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about item no 9 were 2.44 & 2.45 with SD 0.103 & 0.102 correspondingly that made known that their responses were not positive about item no 9 in the questionnaire with P-value 0.4672 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of maintaining students’ counselling record because it was an essential part of proper guidance at the school level.

Response	Gender	N	Mean	S.D	?	tcal	ttab	P-value
SS teachers humanistic role about guiding students properly	Male	160	2.20	0.152	0.05	0.4853	1.96	0.6274
	Female	86	2.19	0.158

Table 2. Teachers’ Humanistic Role Regarding Guiding Students Properly

The calculation of responses showed the mean of male SS teachers and female SS teachers about the total of 9 items included in the questionnaire were 2.20 & 2.19 with SD 0.152 & 0.158 respectively that made known that their responses were negative about ingredients of guidance and the t-value for all 9 items was 0.4853 with P-value 0.6274 that showed clearly that there was no significant difference between the responses of male SS teachers and female SS teachers on the subject of teachers’ humanistic role regarding students’ guidance at the higher secondary school level.



Discussion

Guidance and counselling are very essential elements of the educational process and education itself (Chibber,1999) as these provide maximum learning, psychological help and overall development to student who live in the rapidly changing world but students’ counselling needs are not addressed properly as teachers remains indifferent and students’ development remain unfulfilled (Sultana, 2003) so the adult students of higher secondary schools must be supported by trained teachers to achieve educational goals (Nasir, Hashmi, Siddique, Adnan, Kanwal, 2017) and it was found in the current study that the perceptions of the respondents were similar and negative about guidance and counselling services for students as these services were not provided to students properly and the results were alike to the previous studies as well. 

Conclusion

It was found that the perceptions of SS teachers were not positive about teachers’ humanistic role regarding guiding students properly that showed that the teachers were not paying due attention to their students as humans to guide them properly in all relevant fields for their all-round growth and development for the betterment of all humanity. It was also found that there was no significant difference between the perceptions of male SS teachers and female SS teachers regarding teachers’ humanistic role in the perspective of students’ guidance.

Recommendations

As the current research study showed that guidance is an overlooked aspect of education so the SS teachers may be given training, handbooks, resources about guidance and counselling at the school level to make teaching-learning programme more effective, provide meaningful and fruitful education to students, solve their academic, social, psychological, career problems accordingly and make them good humans who may be able to serve all humanity across all boundaries. 

References

• Al-Khafaji, S. (2017),
• Ballane, G. (2019),
• Chibber, S. K. (1999),
• Denga, D. I. (2004),
• Dorcas, O. F. (2013),
• Forman, G., & Hall, E. (2013),
• Goodstein, L. D., Nolan, T. M., & Pfeiffer, J. W. (2006).Applied Strategic Planning: An Introduction. Applied Strategic Planning: A Comprehensive Guide
• Gysbers, N. C. (2006)
• Kariuki,M.G., & Mbugua, Z. K. (2018),
• Kassymova, K., Kosherbayeva, N., Sangilbayev, S., &Schachl, H. (2018, September),
• Khan, H., Murtaza, F., & Shafa, M. D. (2012),