Comparisons of Selected Familial, Personality, and Vocational Variables of High School Students and Dropouts

Abstract

This study investigated seventeen dependent variables in the familial, personality, and vocational areas with male high school students (N = 77) and dropouts (N = 72), matched on age, as two levels of the independent variable. One-way ANOVA revealed that in comparison to their counterparts in high school, dropouts as a group had parents of lower educational levels and fathers whose occupations could be characterized by lower levels of difficulty, responsibility, and prestige. They received less encouragement from parents regarding education, perceived relationship with fathers to be less fruitful, and perceived fathers’ attitudes toward them to be lower in acceptance and higher in avoidance. Dropouts also showed a lower level of achievement motivation, had lower accuracy in perceiving the occupational prestige hierarchy, showed lower occupational aspiration, and chose occupations of the types which are of a lower level of difficulty, responsibility, and prestige. No significant differences were found between the two groups on father concentration, parental interest, fear of failure, and self-esteem.