Guidance Needs among Secondary School Students

In secondary schools, guidance plays an important role in supporting the holistic development of adolescents. The objective of the study was to examine the level of guidance needs of secondary school students in Balasore district and to find out differences in guidance needs with respect to gender and locality. A descriptive survey method was adopted for the study and the sample consisted of 120 secondary school students selected through stratified random sampling from 12 secondary schools of Balasore district, Odisha. Data were collected using the Guidance Need Scale developed by Sharma and Sharma (2017), which measures educational, vocational, personal, and social guidance needs. Percentage analysis and t-tests were applied for data analysis. The findings revealed that the majority of secondary school students possess an average level of guidance need, followed by above-average guidance need, which indicates that schools should strengthen structured and comprehensive guidance services to address students’ guidance needs. Further, the results showed no significant difference in guidance needs with respect to gender or locality. The study concludes that guidance needs among secondary school students are largely uniform irrespective of gender and rural–urban background, emphasising the importance of providing inclusive and uniform guidance programmes in schools to support students’ overall development and future decision-making.