Female College Freshmen Research Articles

CONVERGENT AND DISCRIMINANT VALIDATION OF MEASURES OF PERSONAL NEEDS1

The criteria of convergent and discriminant validation proposed by Campbell & Fiske (1959) were applied to a multitrait‐multimethod matrix constructed from the intercorrelations of 15 need scales found in the Adjective Check List (ACL), the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS), and a normative modification of the EPPS (N‐EPPS). The evidence, based upon 131 male and female college freshmen, supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the 15 needs when the two forms of the Edwards inventory were compared. When these two instruments were compared with the ACL, the criteria of convergent and discriminant validity were met, but only to a minimal extent.

Semantic conditioning and generalization.

One female college freshman, serving as 5, was conditioned to salivate to a list of words, and generalization to synonym-related and homonym-related word lists was then studied. No significant difference was found between generalization to the word lists of synonyms and homonyms; both lists exerted the same control over behavior. E concluded that these results support the notion that reliable semantic generalization gradients can not be demonstrated when the data of individual Ss are considered. Some shortcomings of semantic conditioning and generalization research are discussed.

Motives for college attendance.

Motives for college attendance were compared for male and female college freshmen at a resident, private college (80 males, 80 females) and at a commuter, state university (77 males, 62 females). Ss were administered a 19-statement rating scale. There were no apparent sex differences within each group. Desire to satisfy parental demands was a much stronger motivational factor for resident, private college students and a desire to make more money was rated as a much stronger motivational factor by the commuter, public college group.

Anisometropia and the rod-and-frame task.

Ss were 77 female college freshmen. Anisometropic Ss (defined as having more than 1′ of visual angle of difference in resolving power between the two eyes as measured while viewing Orthorater stimuli binocularly) were significantly poorer in rod-and-frame performance than were isometropic Ss. Similarly, Ss with poor rod-and-frame performance were found to be anisometropic significantly more often than Ss with good rod-and-frame performance. There was no difference in rod-and-frame performance between anisometropic Ss who did or did not become isometropic when tested monocularly on the Orthorater. These results are tentatively interpreted as due to cyclophoria leading to visual suppression.

Career Choice Patterns

Data on 76,015 male and 51,110 female college freshmen at 248 colleges and universities were analyzed to determine how father's education and high school grades were related to career choice. It was found that students at each high school grade average level tend to have different career choices depending on their father's education. A separate study of career choices of women indicated that those who choose nontraditional careers (traditional careers are teacher, nurse, social worker, clerical worker, and laboratory technician) have highly educated fathers, even though the same careers (e.g., pharmnacist and engineer) draw men whose fathers have relatively little education.

Life goals of American college freshmen.

In samples of 6,289 male and 6,143 female college freshmen, 35 items pertaining to life goals were intercorrelated. With unity in the diagonal, a principal components analysis was earned out, extracting all factors with an eigenvalue greater than 1.00. Final solutions were derived through the varimax procedure, and the similarity of the two rotated matrices assessed. Seven factors common to the two sexes were titled: Prestige, Personal Happiness, Humanistic-Cultural, Religious, Scientific, Artistic, and Hedonistic. An Altruistic factor was obtained for females only, and an Athletic Success factor for males only. Implications for predicting vocational success and for counseling are considered.

Prediction of College Success from Measures of Anxiety, Achievement Motivation, and Scholastic Aptitude

The nonintellectual predictors of college grades were studied by means of the EPPS, the 16 PF, the IPIT, a multiple-choice variation of the TAT, the Page Fantasy Scale, the Taylor MAS, and the Sarason TAQ. For 76 male and female college freshmen and sophomores measures of high school grade point average and EPPS n-Ach were significant predictors of college grades but measures of scholastic aptitude and anxiety were not. It was implied that high school achievement is a superior criterion for predicting college success. Adequate measures of nonintellectual variables which may contribute to that prediction are lacking.

An investigator of scholastic over- and under-achievement among female college freshmen.

An investigator of scholastic over- and under-achievement among female college freshmen.