Topic 2 Guidance: definition, main characteristics and types of classification (formal/ informal, individual/ group, educational/ vocational/ personal)
Guidance is the practice of giving people advice, suggestions and practical help so that they take the best path in life.
It refers to the process of helping individuals to discover and develop their potential. The need of guidance is something that cannot be ignored by anyone.
Guidance helps in the development of educational, vocational, and psychological skills in an individual. Most noteworthy, guidance would help an individual to achieve an optimal level of happiness and peace in life.
An individual who receives proper guidance would surely contribute significantly to society.
The term “guidance” has been defined by several psychologists, some definitions…
“Guidance is not giving directions. It is not the imposition of one person’s point of view upon another person. It is not making decisions for an individual which he should make for himself. It is not carrying the burden of another’s life. Rather, guidance is assistance made available by personally qualified and adequately trained men or women to an individual of any age to help him manage his own life active, development his own point of view, make this own decisions, and carry out his own burden”. Crow and Crow
“Guidance means to stimulate and help the students to set up worth-while, achievable purposes and develop abilities. Which will make it possible for him to achieve his purpose? The essential elements are the setting up of purpose of provision of experiences, the development of abilities, and the achievement of purposes. Teaching without intelligent guidance cannot be effective teaching or it is incomplete. Teaching and guidance are inseparable.” Rincle and Gillkrist
“Guidance is continuous process of helping the individual development to the maximum of his capacity in the direction most beneficial to himself and to society.” E.F. Lindquist
Characteristics of Guidance
-Guidance is usually given by qualified and trained person to develop own point view of oneself: there are people who need help and there are people who can help them;
-Guidance and teaching are inseparable to one another;
-The intelligent guidance makes the teaching-learning process most effective: teaching is incomplete without proper guidance;
-It is a continuous and life long process for all sphere or walk of life;
-It converts the reality into satisfaction to himself and benefit to society.
-It stimulates and helps the students to set-up worthwhile. It is a process of development.
Types of classification
Guidance is classified in several ways:
I-Type
(a) Formal Guidance and (b) Informal Guidance
II-Type
(a) Individual Guidance and (b) Group Guidance
III-Type- This classification is most popular and wide used:
- Educational Guidance,
- Vocational Guidance,
- Personal Guidance.
For our purpose, we concentrate on III-Type.
Educational Guidance
The guidance provided by the educator to learners for their educational problems, is known as “Educational Guidance”. It is based on learners’ cumulative records.
It is used for the following purposes:
(a) In the choice of study subjects in school.
(b) In removing the specific deficiencies of students related to study.
(c) In identifying the causes of their failure by using diagnostic tests in the study subjects.
(d) In providing the remedial teaching for the learning weakness of the students.
Write down a list of sentences and/or attitudes that you usually use during guidance and check if they respect the various definitions of guidance in intentions and objectives.
If you want to learn more about guidance read the following:Guidance
TITLE: What group guidance activities have you tried or do you know about?
EXERCISE: Write them down and then discuss them with your colleagues.
The main aim of this topic was to explain what “Guidance” is.
It goes through definitions of various researchers and presents the most known and those that are more useful for the scope of this Platform.
It explores guidance main characteristics, principles and objective on which the concept of guidance – especially of “educational guidance” is based.