Effects of rational emotive psychotherapy consort on business education students’ perception about image of technical vocational education and training in South-East Nigeria

BACKGROUND: We determined the effects of rational-emotive psychotherapy on the perception of Business Education Students about TVET Image. Negative perception about TVET by youths, parents and the society has made TVET programs unattractive, uninteresting, less productive and by extension created an unhealthy organizational climate. Improving participants’ perception will assist them to mitigate the effect of irrational beliefs, emotional distress, strengthening their psychosocial wellbeing and occupational health. METHOD: This study adopted a pre-test–post-test control group design. Data were collected from 568 participants comprising 104, 137, and 333 from nine federal, state and private owned universities in South-East Nigeria. RESULTS: The result showed that rational-emotive psychotherapy significantly improved the emotional distress, perceptions of TVET image and positively addressed the organizational climate among participants in the intervention group compared to the participants in the waitlist group. The result also revealed that occupational risk management practices of the participants in the intervention group improved significantly more than those in the waitlist group. From the result, we conclude that TVET institutions can apply the REBT model as an intervention program for improving the perceptions of stakeholders about TVET image in order to increase students’ interest, boost their self-confidence, self-esteem, and zeal for TVET practices. CONCLUSION: It was concluded that the REBT-oriented therapy helped to improve the emotional distress, irrational beliefs, and poor perception of the Business Education students who perceived TVET programs as an inferior and low-esteemed profession.