Comparison of high school students' metaphorical perceptions about counseling service and psychological counselors at different school types

The purpose of this thesis is to compare high school students? metaphorical perceptions about counseling service and psychological counselor at different school types. The scope of this study consists of 12th grade high school students studying at different school types located in Tuzla in İstanbul province at 2012-2013 instructional year. The sample of the thesis consists of 247 students who were randomly selected by cluster sampling. The data related the study have been collected in two parts:? metaphorical perceptions about counseling service questionnaire? and ?Personal data form?.The first part of the questionnaire includes personal information, the second part has 4 open-ended questions aimed to determine metaphorical perceptions of psychological counselor, counseling service, counseling activities and counseling room. The data obtained from the questionnaires was registered and analysed with the help of SPSS software. The frequency and percentage distribution were calculated concerning the related data and descriptive analyzes were conducted on gender and type of school. Findings obtained from the study are the following; 1. Students mostly have positive metaphorical perceptions about psychological counselor. However, they have negative metaphorical perceptions about counceling service, counceling activities and counceling room. 2. Male students have more positive metaphorical perceptions compared to female students. 3. Students studying at Anatolian High School have more positive metaphorical perceptions about counceling service and psychological counselor than the students studying at Vocational High School. 4. Students studying at Vocational High School have more positive metaphorical perceptions about counceling activities. 5. Students studying at Anatolian High School have more positive metaphorical perceptions about counceling service room than the students studying at Vocational High School Key words: guidance,psyhological counseling and metaphor.