Face-to-Face and Online Counseling: Client Problems and Satisfaction

Şerife Gonca Zeren

Abstract

Alongside technological developments, online counseling has started becoming widespread since last decade. The purpose of this study is to investigate face-to-face and online counseling in terms of client problems and satisfaction. This qualitative study used a phenomenology research design and consisted of 12 female and 9 male, twenty-one volunteer clients. Fifteen participants were given face-to-face, whereas six participants, online counseling. Clients received face-to-face and online counseling from seven volunteer senior students in the undergraduate program of Counseling and Guidance. A content analysis is used for data interpretation. The results of the study suggest that the problems and satisfaction are quite similar in face-to-face and online clients. Personal problems were the most common problem among the clients. Respectively, career development concerns, academic problems, and relationship issues with a partner and family follow personal problems. All the participants were satisfied with the counseling process and satisfaction of face-to-face counseling and online counseling participants were remarkably similar.

Keywords

Online counseling, Client problems, Client satisfaction, Technology, Internet


DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15390/EB.2015.4696

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