Morale of College-Trained Adults

Abstract

I The Working Hypotheses. This study is an exploratory inquiry into the morale of college trained adults. It seeks to examine three 0 hypotheses: (i) the morale of adults depends not only on the nature of the social situation but also on how each individual feels that some purpose or value of his own is affected by the situation; (2) a wide variety of sociological and social psychological factors are associated with morale; (3) it is possible to predict the morale of any college trained adult within a range of the upper and lower quartiles if some of the major factors associated with morale can be identified. II. Collection of Data. i. Description of Adults Selected. This investigation is only one part of a comprehensive research being conducted at the University of Minnesota.' A grant was made available to the General College in I937 for a thorough inquiry into the lives of former University of Minnesota students who had left the University from one to thirteen years before I937. A sample of i6oo adults was chosen in I937. These persons were selected in order that the sample might be representative of those who enter the University and constitute the collegiate population which numbered about I3,000 students in I937. Of the i6oo cases, 8oo were of each sex and these were subdivided to 200 of each sex who entered the University as freshmen in the school years i924-25, i925-26, i928-29, i929-30. The number drawn from each college was proportional to the total entering enrollment in the college of Science, Literature, and Arts, and in the colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, and Education. These colleges absorb the major share of entering students. While maintaining these proportions, the sample was drawn from alphabetical lists in accordance with this particular practice of random sampling. 2. Construction of the Questionnaire. The original questionnaire in the General College research project was selected by the director of research as the means of gathering the wide range of information desired. Members of the General College staff cooperatively built the questionnaire. The four major areas of vocational life, home and family life, social-civic life, and