Date of Award

Spring 1993

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program/Concentration

Urban Services - Urban Education

Committee Director

Dana Burnett

Committee Member

Garrett McAuliffe

Committee Member

Jack E. Robinson

Committee Member

Robert Lucking

Abstract

This follow-up study utilized John L. Holland's theory of vocational personalities and work environments to examine the relationship between students personality types and their career choices. The study sought to determine whether data collected using Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) was a valid predictor of (1) career goal, (2) eventual choice of college major, (3) persistence to graduation, (4) occupation (type of job held at the time the data was collected), and (5) level of satisfaction with occupation (job) at the time data was gathered.

The stratified random sample for the study was composed of 180 subjects drawn from a population of entering freshmen at a middle-sized, southern, urban university in 1979. The initial set of data gathered by the SDS from these subjects was compared with data collected from the same individuals ten years later (1989-90). Global job satisfaction was also measured in 1989-90 by administering the Job-in-General scale of the Job Descriptive Index.

Congruence (the level of agreement) between subjects' personality type (as determined by the SDS) and the choices they made with regard to the five areas listed in the first paragraph was measured by the Iachan Index. Statistical significance for the congruence results was set at.05.

For the total sample, the results of the Chi-square distribution showed no significant difference between subjects with high-moderate congruence between Personality Type (Summary) code and Occupational Aspiration (Daydream) code and those with weak poor congruence for persistence to college graduation. However, results from Fisher's Exact Probability test showed that subjects with high-moderate congruence in sub-groups R, I, and S were more likely to persist to graduation than those with weak-poor congruence.

For the total sample and the majority subjects in sub-groups R, I, and S, the results of Cohen's Weighted Kappa test showed that Personality Type (Summary code) was a moderately efficient predictor of College Major.

For the total sample, the results of the Chi-square distribution showed that subjects with high-moderate congruence between Summary code and College Major code were more likely to be satisfied with their college major than those who had weak-poor congruence between the two codes. Results from Fisher's Exact Probability test showed that subjects with high-moderate congruence in sub-groups R, I, A and S were more likely to be satisfied with their college major than those with weak-poor congruence.

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DOI

10.25777/fwsa-mw29

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