Page 101 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Unit 8: Personal and Group Guidance: Concept, Aims and Methods

part of a team of adults interacting with young children and stimulating the development of their Notes
human potential through'careful and thoughtful guidance techniques.
Guidance is the help given by .one person to another in making choices and adjustments and in
solvihg problems. Guidanoe aims at aiding the recipient to grow in independence and ability
Techniques and to be responsible for oneself. It is a service that is universal - not confined to the
school or Proeedum of Guidance the family. It is found in all phases of life - in the home, in business
and industry, in government. in social life, in hospitals and in prisons; indeed it is present wherever
there are people who can help.
(i) The Questionnaire: A questionnaire is a list of questions to be answered by an individual or
a group of individuds, especially to get facts or information. It should be elaborated to match
with other techniques. Questions .are designed to get information about conditions and practices
about which the respondent(s) are presumed to have the knowledge. The questions i i a
questionnaire are basically of two types - the closed and the open type. In the open type,
questions require the individual to think and write. For example, what is your favourite sports?
(ii) Observation: In this technique behaviour is studied through .observation by a trained observer.
The effectiveness of the technique depends upon the skilfulness of the observer. The observer
is expected to observe well defined behaviours free from biases ahd prejudices. Observational
techniques are useful in the study of students ard individuals but their usefulness depends
upon the maonei and purpose with which they are conducted.
(iii) Sociometry: The purpose of this is to study the nature of social relationship of individual
within a group. It offers an opportunity to identify personality problems, especially in isolates
and the rejects. The technique is a useful source of information for appraisal of social behaviour
of students.
There are usually three 'types of sociometric techniques : (i) the nomination (ii) the social
acceptance and (iii).the 'who's who' or 'guess who'. In the nomination techniques the student
is asked to select and name hidher peers in terms of some criterion suggested by the teacher.
For example, the teacher may ask students to name three best friends in the class. Jn the social
acceptance technique levels of social relationship are stated and the studeniis asked to express
hisher sociometric choice. In the- 'Guess who' technique brief descriptions of various types of
students are provided and they are asked to guess who in the class matches with the description.
For examples, one of the statements may be 'The boy is always in rtbuble with his parents',
who?
(iv) Autobiography: You might have read a number of autobiographies of great personalities,
some of the common are: 'My Experiments with Truth' by Mahatma Gandhi, autobiography of
an unknown Indian by Nirad C. Chaudhary: An autobiography is a description of an individual
in his own words. As a guidance technique for studying the individual, it gives valuable
information about the individual's interests, abilities, personal history, hopes, ambitions, likes,
dislikes, etc.
(v) Rating Scales: In this technique presence or absence of a particular type of behaviour or trait
in a person is rated in terms of quantity and quality. You might. be rating your students'
performance, handwriting, habits and many other aspects in your day-today teaching. For
example, Ashok has done better than Meena in Maths but Meena scored the highest in Hindi.
Ram is taller than Shyam but Shyam is taller than Nitesh.

The word 'rate' means judging somebody or estimating the value of something. The rater, who
has observed the individual in a number of situations, gives his judgements. In a rating scheme
each student is judged on the same general traits and judgements are exptessed in the form of
a scale on which are marked very poor-poor-average-good- very gaod'. For cbntrast an-d
convenience these ratings are shown graphically on profiles.

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