FACULTY PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe primary purpose of this study was to determine student traits that faculty associate with desirability, separate and apart from those reflected by the traditional academic achievement indices.Ratings of students on 80 variables, including a student desirability variable, were obtained, together with high school and college grade averages and SAT scores. The resulting 84 × 84 correlation matrix was factored by the diagonal method, using precise communality estimates from a separate factor analysis. In this case, the procedure permits partialling out the variance in desirability and the other variables which is attributable to academic performance, and definition of residual desirability in terms of relationship of the residual of the other variables to desirability apart from academic performance. The diagonal factoring method was also used to examine the content, including academic performance, of general desirability, and to define desirability separate and apart from SAT and academic performance.Ratings of intellectual ability and values, motivation, and creativity, as well as actual grade point average, were found to be related to general desirability ratings. Desirability apart from grades, however, appears to consist of such traits as likableness, ethicality, open‐mindedness, altruism, maturity, and self‐insight, although ratings of intellectual ability and values have components related to grades and to desirability apart from grades. Ability as measured by the SAT, though reasonably related to performance, appears to have negative relationship to desirability apart from grades.