NEWS
A Master’s Thesis at UoB Confirms that Virtual Counseling Positively Affects the Psychological Well-Being of Students and their Academic Achievement
University of Bahrain – Sakhir (Ali Al-Sabbagh)
March 18, 2022
A scientific study at UoB confirmed that the extensive application of virtual counseling techniques positively affects the psychological and academic well-being of teenage students and contributes to maintaining their levels of academic achievement.
The study, prepared by master’s student in Family Counseling, Shaima Mohammad Ishaqi, aimed to identify the impacts of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis on the level of psychological and academic well-being of middle school students in private schools in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The study, supervised by the Professor of Psychology, College of Arts, University of Bahrain, Dr. Ahmed Saad Jalal, was entitled “Virtual Counseling for Private School Students during the Coronavirus (Covid 19) Crisis: An Assessment Study in the Kingdom of Bahrain,” and it was conducted in fulfillment of the requirements for the master’s degree in family counseling.
The study also aimed to reveal the most important sources of support for students and the impact of demographic variables on the level of psychological and academic well-being of students.
The researcher stated, “the practical importance of the study lies in highlighting ways of applying virtual counseling in schools more effectively as well as finding solutions to the problems of applying virtual counseling in the schools of the Kingdom of Bahrain as much as possible.”
The study adopted the descriptive comparative approach, and the sample included all male and female students in the Middle School at Abdul Rahman Kanoo International School in the Kingdom of Bahrain, amounting to 379 students (174 male students and 205 female students).
The researcher defined virtual counseling as helping and guiding the student using the internet and social media to be faster and easily accessible.
Psychological well-being, according to the researcher, is a positive state of mental and emotional health, indicating that a person can function cognitively and emotionally in a productive and satisfying manner. She defined academic well-being as a set of subjective feelings and attitudes towards school.
The study revealed that virtual academic counseling contributed to maintaining students’ achievement levels, through providing them with continuous support even under the conditions of online learning during the Coronavirus pandemic. Academic well-being levels were high among respondents. The levels of respondents’ access and support were also high, and their interaction with the available virtual counseling services was positive.
The thesis recommended that virtual counseling services provided for students should continue after the end of the Coronavirus crisis as it is necessary for students to have access to their counselors more flexibly and at different times to increase the effectiveness of the counseling processes, and guarantee continuity of their positive impacts. She called for training all counselors in public and private schools on available virtual counseling applications and services, to be more experienced and professional when applying them.
The discussion committee consisted of Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Bahrain, Dr. Ahmed Saad Jalal as supervisor, Professor of Child Psychology in the same department, Prof. Jihan Issa Al-Omran as an internal examiner, and faculty member at Minia University, Arab Republic of Egypt, Prof. Barakat Hamza as an external examiner.
