The Measurement of Orientation

Abstract

Recent years have seen decided interest in the intellectual orientation of the college student. So desirable has seemed the objective of a working familiarity with all fields of human knowledge that special survey and orientation courses have been introduced into many Freshman curriculums. By such techniques it has been hoped that the student would get his bearings in the midst of the multitude of complicated and interrelated facts and items which constitute our knowledge of the world and of man. Survey courses have tended to bridge the gap between the secondary school and the university and college. They have provided a more rational initiation into the mysteries which are higher education and have tended to prevent intellectual floundering. They have provided a better background for choices of academic specializations and of vocations. It is doubtful, however, whether such techniques have proved sufficiently comprehensive, for but little has been vouchsafed as to the nature of orientation or the factors which militate for such a desirable, discriminative skill. Apparently, orientation as a process, a function, or a capacity has not been subjected to scientific scrutiny. We are not sure whether orientation is a process which is a necessary by-product of a broad, general education or whether it has characteristics quite independent of exact knowledge of the various arts and sciences. We do not know whether orientation depends on the accuracy of factual data acquired in the various fields of learning or whether it is a more superficial skill which may be imparted hurriedly with a resultant ability to find one's way in the morass of modern science without reference to essential meanings. We have no valid measures of orientation, nor do we know the variations in individual differences. We do not know whether all college Freshmen enter the university