Abstract:

The study investigated the role of students’ problems, locus of control, personality and social support as predictors of counseling seeking behavior of adolescents in senior high schools in Volta region, Ghana. A correlational survey was the research designed for the study. Stratified proportional and simple random samplings were used to select 300 students for the study but 218 questionnaires were retrieved for the study. The instruments used for data collection were the Big Five Inventory (BFI), Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale, self-stigma of help-seeking scale, Multi-dimensional scale of Perceived Social Support Assessment, General Help-seeking Questionnaire and Students’ Problems Inventory. Four hypotheses were tested. The findings and conclusions indicate that there is significant correlation between students’ problems and counseling-seeking behavior, locus of control positively and significantly predicts all other study variables except self-stigma of seeking help which it predicts negatively, a significant correlation exists between social support and students’ problems and help-seeking behavior, adolescents with conscientious personality with external locus of control will show a higher counseling seeking behavior than adolescents with neurotic personality and internal locus of control, adolescents with openness personality traits and internal locus of control will show high counseling seeking behavior than adolescents with agreeable and external locus of control. There is a significant positive correlation between social support and counseling seeking behavior.

Keywords: Adolescents, Personality, Locus of control, Social support, Help-seeking behavior.

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