Abstract

This study investigated the Relationship between Guidance Services and Career Awareness of Public University Students in Plateau State, Nigeria. Four research questions were raised while four hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The research design used was correlation survey research design. The population of the study was 97,412 gotten from three (3) public universities in Plateau State, which included Federal University of Education Pankshin, Plateau State University Bokkos and University of Jos. A sample size of 382 students was used for the study gotten using Krejcie Morgan (1970) table of specification. The study used two instruments made by the researcher titled “Guidance Service Scale (GSS) and Career Development State (CDS)”for the collection of data. The instruments yielded a validity index of 0.86 and 0.73 from experts. The reliability of the instrument obtained a Chronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.80 and 0.78 for GSS and CDS respectively. The data was analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions while Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that; the four guidance services which included information service, counselling service, placement service and appraisal service has significant relationship with career development of university students in Plateau State. The following recommendations were made; Counsellors should enhance students’ career awareness by providing timely information services through ICT and other media, offering professional counselling in schools, conducting regular appraisals with tests and evaluations, and ensuring effective placement services to identify and support students with achievement challenges early