Self-Description and Adjustment Correlates of Occupational Choice

Abstract

A study of the relationship between occupational choice, self concept, and adjustment, self-ratings of bi-polar traits and MMPI scales for over 500 college students in music, science, and physical education were subjected to these statistical analyses: Chi-square test of independence and Duncan's method for significant means. The results indi cated that the vocational groups seemed to be differen tiated in terms of personality traits and relative adjust ment?the physical education group indicating better adjustment than the others. Yet, when the sex factor was brought to bear on the data, music and science males seemed closer to each other than to physical education males, and the female groups seemed to be more nearly alike. Conclusion: individuals are in related fields because they have similar personality characteristics, similar needs, and manifest a similar pattern of social adjustment. This seems to be true even though the students are planning to be teachers. THERE IS A growing interest, among re searchers and vocational counselors particularly, in the relationship which seems to exist between the individual's choice of occupation and the view he holds of himself. Thus, according to Super (11), the individual chooses a particular occupa tion in the belief that the roles he will play in the job will be consistent with his picture of the kind of person he is, i.e., his occupational roles and his self concept will be compatible. Furthermore, as Siegelman and Peck suggest (8), the majority of individuals in a given voca tion share a common personality need pattern that is different from personality need patterns characterizing individuals in other vocational groups. The study about to be related appar ently supports both positions and also indicates the tendencies of the differentiated groups in terms of adjustment. Research findings tend toward the reality of a common thread drawing vocational interest and personality together (1, 6, 7, 9, 10). In some of these, adjustment is also a factor. The signifi cance of the present study, however, lay in dis covering whether the differentiation of occupa tional groups could be ascertained among college students not yet a part of the working force and who were all training to be teachers but in three different areas of concentration?science, music, and physical education. Specifically, the re searchers were interested in answering this cen tral question: Are college students enrolled in a teacher-training program significantly different in terms of their adjustment by their major fields of science, music, or physical education? This study, therefore, was an attempt to extend the more usual study of contrasting vocational groups to comparing the personality and adjust ment of college students with different fields of concentration but within the broad framework of the same occupation of teaching. Method From a university's teacher-training program, over 500 students majoring in music, science, or physical education were administered the MMPI. Later they were asked to rate themselves on the basis of 36 pairs of bi-polar traits, taken from the MMPI scales. Example: Calm_:_:_:_Restless very more more very calm calm restless restless than than restless calm These were the instructions given to the Ss on the self-concept inventory : People are differ ent in the ways they think about themselves. We are interested in discovering what you believe yourself to be like at this moment. Therefore, you are requested to describe yourself, as you now are, by placing a check anywhere on one of the four lines between two words which are oppo site in meaning. Each line represents how well the adjective fits your self. Look at the words at both ends of the line be fore you decide where to place your checkmark. Work rapidly; give your first reaction to the | items, since your first answer is likely to be the | best. Please do not omit any items and mark each I item only once. Remember: there are no right or wrong answers?only answers which best de I scribe yourself. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.180 on Thu, 08 Sep 2016 05:10:09 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 28 JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH The statistical designs employed were the Chi square test of independence and Duncan's method for significant means, on the personality traits as indicated from the self-concept measure and on the MMPI scales respectively. The scores were submitted to four different procedures: 1) the Chi-square test for significant traits from the self-concept inventory; 2) comparison of these significant traits with the salient MMPI scale traits; 3) coding of the salient MMPI scales; 4) Duncan's multiple comparisons test of the MMPI group means.