Relationships Between Citizenship Attitudes Parental Education and Other Variables

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PURDUE UNIVERSITY

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT THE TH ESIS PREPARED U N DER MY SUPER VISIO N

BY

Arthur James Drucker

ENTTTT/Kn

Relationships Between Citizenship Attitudes, Parental Education and Other Variables.

COMPLIES WITH THE UNIVERSITY REGULATIONS O N GRADUATION TH ESES

AND IS APPROVED BY ME A S FULFILLING THIS PART O F THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF

J)-gc.to r -of Philo gophy

P r o fe s s o r in C h a r g e o f T h e s is

H e a p o f S c h o o l or D e p a r t m e n t

19

•2rS-

TO THE LEBRARIAN;-

dESc THIS TH ESIS IS NOT TO BE REGARDED A S CONFIDENTIAI..

PS O F E S S O S zsr OHASGB

G RAD. SCHOOZi FORSI 8—3 -4 B —131

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CITIZENSHIP ATTITUDES PARSIFAL EDUCATION AND OTHER VARIABLES

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University by Arthur J

Drucker

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

August, 1949

ProQuest Number: 27712221

All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is d e p e n d e n t upon the quality of the copy subm itted. In the unlikely e v e n t that the a u thor did not send a c o m p le te m anuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if m aterial had to be rem oved, a n o te will ind ica te the deletion.

uest ProQuest 27712221 Published by ProQuest LLO (2019). C opyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C o d e M icroform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346

ACKNOVÆEDGSa^îEWT

I wish to express appreciation to Dr. H. H. Remmers who furnished the idea for this thesis, as well as opportunity for carrying it through to completion. Acknowledgement and thanks are also due to the other members of my committee for their counsel. I am particularly indebted to James A. Norton, Jr. for his extensive assistance and advice on statistical phases of the study and to Benjamin Shimberg for his advice and assistance on PURDUE OPINION PANEL procedure.

Drucker, Arthur J., Relationships Between Citizenship Attitudes. Parental Education and Other Variables, August, 1949^ 72 pages, 15 tables. Appendix 36 pages, and 47 titles in the bibliography. To investigate the relationships between citizenship attitudes of high school students and the level and type of education of the students* fathers, a 19-item scale and four shorter scales were developed, based on definitions of citizenship.

From a total sample of about 10,000 students

throughout the country who typically subscribe to the PURDUE OPINION PANEL, factorially-designed samples of 960 and 400 cases were selected. Analysis of variance on scores of the 960 students revealed that students whose fathers had college education made higher scores than students whose fathers did not attend high school or students whose fathers did not finish

school, sex, grade, urban-rural status, and home environment

level being equal.

Students in the 11th and 12th grades made higher

scores than students in the 9th and 10th grades, urban students made higher scores than rural students, and students of the higher home environment level made higher scores than students in the lower home environment level, in each comparison the other factors being equal.

The

factorially-designed sample of 400 was selected on the basis of the type of college education of the fathers, grade level in school, sex and home environment status.

The analysis of varieince revealed a superiority of

citizenship of the students whose fathers* education had been mostly general rather than special, of the students in the upper grades, and of students with the higher home environment status, other factors being equal.

Girls showed some superiority over boys on the Politics sub-scale.

Interactions involving both level and type of fathers' education of the

students and the grades of students were found to be fairly significant. These results are believed to have implications for education in general and for the type of education an individual receives at the college level.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter

Page

1. DEFINING THE PROBLEM.....................................

1

The Time S t u d y ........

2

Purposes of the Present S t u d y .....................

5

What is a Good Citizen?

5

Background —

...............

Related Studies Dealing with Attitude Formation

......

2. PURDUE OPINION PANEL NO. 2 2 .............................

8 14

The Sample and Polling Mechanism.....................

14

The Questions ..............

14

The Responses .

19

..................................

3. MEASURING CITIZENSHIP .....................................

20

Factor and Scale Analysis of the 26 I t e m s

21

The Item Analysis

25

.....

28

The Four Sub-Scales ................... 4. FINDING THE RELATIONSHIPS .................

35

Level of Fathers’ Education in Relation to Citizenship . 37 Type of Fathers* Education in Relation to Citizenship •• Discussion

.........

57

5. SUÎ#'IARY AND CONCLUSIONS ................................... Conclusions Implications

.........................

64 66 68

.........

Suggestions for Further Research

48

.....

69

BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................

70

APPENDIX A ..............................................

73

CHAPTER 1 DEFINING THE PROBLEM There is a direct relationship between the status of a science and the degree to which measurement has been developed in it* In the physical sciences measurement has a fundamental place; in the newer biological sciences measurement has a less important place; and in the social sciences, the most recent group, measurement has made hardly more than a beginning. (36) The social science investigator is reminded in the above fashion of the limitations of his field of research.

It is axiomatic that success

in establishing relationships between variables in the social sciences depends heavily upon success in measuring the variables. The first and foremost problem encountered in the measurement of social and psychological variables is that of veûLidity; the investigator must demonstrate that the thing or things he purports to measure actually exist*

Frequently the investigator finds a series of examples

of the characteristic he desires to measure, and relates his measurement of the characteristic to the examples*

In the measurement of intelligence,

for example, the basic criterion of what is intelligence is the judgment of some expert or group of experts as to what is intelligent behavior* Sometimes a characteristic must be defined or shown to exist according to the use that is to be made of it or the interpretation that is to be placed upon it*

Thus the characteristic must be defined, explicitly or

implicitly, and units of measurement are then assembled that appear appropriately related to the concept in question* In this study the quality of citizenship as expressed by high school students is to be the criterion variable.

The measurement of this quality

is to be based on what civic esqperts define as the good citizen. the other variables in this study —

Most of

sex of the subject, his grade in

high school, the level of his father's education, the size of the community in which he lives, and his type of home environment present less of a problem for measurement.

This is so for a number of reasons:

1) external criteria for measuring these variables exist; 2) the data representing them are already conveniently expressed in quantitative terms or are so associated with quantitative indices that they can be readily expressed quantitatively; 3) we are interested only in expressing these data dichotomously (or, in one case, trichotomously) whereas for the criterion variable —

citizenship attitudes —

refined and accurate series of measurements.

we want a much more

For example, there is

generally no quibbling over defining sex and placing an individual in one category or the other.

Level of attainment in high school and college

is usually quantified by the grade or year designation.

Rural-urban status

may provoke more disagreement than sex or grade, but population figures of a community are generally accepted as indicating extent of rurification or urbanization of a community*

Home environment, while less-satisfactorily

measured, can be dichotomized in a fairly satisfactory manner, at least, by the short scale employed to measure it.

A sixth variable, type of

college education of the father, does present a considerable problem for measurement, since it is very difficult to obtain universal agreement as to what constitutes general or what is meant by specialized education. Again, measurement of this variable will be based upon \diat appears to be a reasonable distinction between the terms BACKGROUND —

general and specialized*

THE TIME STUDY

Early in 1947 the Research Department of Time magazine commenced a nation-wide survey of college graduates.

Mien the magazine editors asked

college presidents for ideas about what to put in its questionnaire, the reply was, "Tell us what kind of citizens our graduates have become."

In

October, 1947 a 13-page questionnaire was mailed to all living college graduates whose last names began with the letters "Fa".

Replies were

received from 53 percent of this group or 9064 individuals, believed to be a pretty good cross-section of American college graduates. Included in the questionnaire were several scales or groups of questions designed to measure citizenship activities and opinions related to citizenship developed by C. R. Pace of Syracuse University. (32)

Four

opinion scales were labelled Politics, Government, Civic Relations and The World, each of which contained six statements. experts —

Thirty to forty

professors of history, economics, political science, sociology,

public administration and education independently expressed their own opinions about the list of statements indicating whether they agreed, dis­ agreed or had no opinion on each statement.

For those 24 statements

finally included in the four scales these experts agreed at least two to one, The score on each scale was simply taken as the number of items on which one's opinion agreed with the opinion of the experts. The opinions of a majority of college-educated men and women agreed with those of the experts on the scales concerned with Politics, Civic Relations and The World.

Disagreement was sharp on the Government Scale,

especially with regard to items dealing with an understanding of the concepts of democracy, communism and fascism, leading to the tentative conclusion by Pace that "if the experts are right in these opinions, we need much better teaching in our colleges about the role of government in the modem world".

k Some elementary attempts were made by Pace to examine the relationship between type of education and subsequent activities and opinions, a type of follow-up that "recognizes that there are many determinants of behavior .. •.that makes no foolish claim that whatever is good or bad in the be­ havior of people is the result of their school experience".

Of those

college graduates who had said that their college work had been "mostly generalized education" the pattern of response on all four opinion scales was closer to that of the experts than was that of the college graduates who had said their college work had been "mostly specific training for an occupation."

Pace concludes

It seems reasonably clear that liberal or general education, in comparison with education which is predominantly technical or specialized, is associated with (leads to?) [si o •H

5

li

ê s

3

£

1 0

1

I I

1

u

JD

31 items do not correlate as highly with the Politics scale total as they do with other scale totals.

Such items were Numbers 19 and 28.

Politics

Iteng 12, 13 and 19 correlated low with all scale totals, as did Government Item 32.

Government Item 25 correlated lowest with the Government scale

total and rather highly with the World scale total, although it is difficult to justify the inclusion of this item (government-sponsored research in the social sciences) with the World scale.

In addition, many of the items, on

the basis of the comparative correlations, appeared to be interchangeable between the Politics and the Government scales.

This suggests that there

possibly is much overlap between the two scales as set up. items was not attempted, however.

Realignment of

Correlation between items and total

score is partially a function of the particular items in a scale, and hence improvement of the scales by realigning them among the items could not be assured.

Moreover, the labor involved at this stage of the investigation

would have been prohibitive. To investigate possible overlap between the scales as arranged, the total scores on the four scales were intercorrelated, using scores of 927 cases (Table 5)*

No scale was found to correlate highly with any other

scale; in fact, the range of obtained inter-scale correlations was .27 to .36. Either the scales were measuring different factors or the reliabilities of the four scales were low.

The latter possibility was then investigated.

Reliabilities of the four scales. To estimate the reliability of each of the four scales, the Kuder-Richardson Case II formula was used which assumes only that the test measures one factor, since once again the fol­ lowing statistics were available ; the standard deviations of the separate scales, the "difficulty" values of the items, and the correlation between

32 Table 5 Intercorrelations of Politics, Government, Civic Relations and World Scales 1 1.

Politics

2.

Government

2

.360

3

4

.296

.271

.335

.298

3 . Civic Relations 4*

.319

World

the items and the scale totals.

Again, the biserial correlations with the

spurious factor removed were used, to be on the conservative side, for inclusion of the overlapping element in such correlations exerts a tre­ mendous effect upon the size of the reliability* coefficient when the scale is short.

As an empirical check against this decision, Kuder-Richardson

Case III formula was applied to the World scale.

This formula, which re­

quires the difficulties of the items and the standard deviation of the test or scale and assumes that the test measures only one factor and that all of the intercorrelations among the items are equal, and which is supposed to give a slight underestimation of Case II reliability coefficients, gave a reliability

estimate of .40 as contrasted to a Case II reliability of the

same scale of .43.

On the other hand. Case II applied to this scale, using

the biserial correlations uncorrected for overlapping gave .72.

It was

then decided that correlation coefficients corrected for overlap are to be used.

The decision whether to use corrected or uncorrected biserial

correlations in these formulas apparently is not one that is ordinarily crucial for most test constructors, since with a large number of items in a test the spurious effect is not large.

33 The reliabilities of the four scales, then, were as follows; Politics, .42; Government, .61; Civic Relations, .48; and World, .43*

It

should be stressed that these are good estimates of reliability only if the necessary assumptions —

that the test measures only one factor, and

that the inter-item correlations are equal —

are fulfilled.

estimation results if these assumptions are not satisfied.

An under­ It is commonly

agreed that the Kuder-Richardson formulas in general give lower estimates of reliability than do such methods as the split-halves or test-retest methods• Now how may one justify the use of scales that have as low reliability as do these?

Lindquist has this to say;

•«••it is dangerous to attempt to set up any arbitrary standards for the evaluation of reliability coefficients. IVhat may be considered as a "high” or "satisfactory" coefficient of reliability in one situation may be considered as "low" or "unsatisfactory” in another, depending upon the nature of the thing measured, upon the length of the test, upon the range of talent involved, and upon the purpose for which the scores are used. A reliability as low as .40 may be adequate for comparisons of average scores for large groups of individuals, idiile a coefficient even as high as «95 may in some situations be considered inadequate where very accurate descriptions of individuals are desired. The student is therefore advised to make no att^pt to set up any single classification of reliability coefficients as "high", "medium", or "low”, but to evaluate the reliability of each test on a relative basis in comparisons with coefficients similarly obtained for other available tests of the same trait.^i.^^ The reliability coefficients of Pace's opinion scales for the Time survey were about .7.(32)

These, however, had been computed by the test-

retest method, which, as has been pointed out, is expected to give a higher estimate of reliability than do the Kuder-Richardson formulas. Another possible explanation for these discrepancies in reliabilities lies in the fact that the populations were different.

Where this study sampled high

school students' opinions, the Time survey measured the opinions of people

34 who were highly-educated adults who presumably place a premium upon con­ sistency of response and who, in addition, because of the prestige of their educational status, possibly place additional premium upon holding a definite opinion. In the following chapter the various criterion measures outlined in this chapter — scales —

scores on the 19-item scale and scores on the four sub­

will be investigated by factorially designed analysis of variance

in order to characterize in terms of personal and family attributes individuals with varying citizenship attitudes.

35 CHAPTER 4 FINDING THE RELATIONSHIPS In Chapter 1 it was seen that many factors were believed to account for the attitudes an individual holds.

Specifically mentioned were the influ­

ences of type and level of education, amount of information possessed by the individual, parental attitudes, teacher attitudes, and occupation.

There

are, of course, believed to be many other influences. With regard to many investigations dealing with attitude formation, the term, attitude determinant, is really a misnomer.

True, we come close to

assigning causality in experimental investigations to the extent that "other things" are actually equal.

A typical situation is that in which a

deliberate attempt may be made to influence attitudes through intensive indoctrination, as in the studies by Remmers and others. (35)

A change

in attitude toward Negroes, for example, may actually be said to be a result of the experimental variable, depending upon the extent to which has been controlled such factors as original disposition to change in at­ titudes toward Negroes, willingness to "go along with" the investigation, etc.

With regard to survey data concerning attitude differences, assigning

causality is a different matter.

If lawyers and engineers reflect the

attitudes of business rather than of their professions (22), this fact is no particular evidence that lawyers and engineers hold those attitudes because of their occupations; it is equally possible that they have entered those occupations because they held the given attitudes.

Or, in comparing

the relative importance of socio-economic status and level of education as determinants of a specific attitude, the question may very well be raised as to the interdependence of both factors or the dependence of both

36 factors on a third factor. Even when a high degree of control is possible with survey data, probably the best conclusions that can be reached consist of statements expressing relationships.

Thus, when one normally finds correlation between

the attitudes of parents and children, he can conclude that 1) parents influence the children, or, 2) children influence the parents, 3) both attitudes of children and parents come about through a third factor, 4) at­ titudes of children and parents come about through combinations of inter­ acting factors. The fact that the data of this study are survey data precludes that anything approaching a causal relationship can be demonstrated.

Through

the factorially designed analysis of variance a large number of factors, taken singly or in combination with others, can be investigated, however, as they relate to citizenship attitudes.

Interpretation of results will

then be based upon these relationships with causal effects to be merely hypothesized. Analysis of variance. Eky traditional methods of experimental design, when a number of factors are to be investigated as they relate to a cri­ terion variable, the procedure is to examine one factor at a time by con­ trolling all other known and controllable factors.

Then a separate test

of significance is conducted for each factor by computing the standard error of the mean or other statistics.

Johnson objects that in addition to the

labor involved ••♦.in many cases the obtained estimates of standard errors may not differ beyond merely sampling errors. In such cases it may be concluded that the larger part of the observed differences is attributable to random sampling errors, and that a more accurate as well as much less compli­ cated analysis would result by pooling the sums of squares of deviations from the different means and by applying the combined estimate in the test of significance. (18)

37 This is a procedure that is a main characteristic of the analysis of variance technique which provides an exact test of the null hypothesis and which makes more efficient use of the relevant information contained in the data.

Analysis of variance is "a method capable of analyzing the

variation to which experimental and observational material is subject so that an assessment of the various components of variation can be made".(18) In the factorially designed analysis of variance all the factors to be examined are varied concurrently in all possible combinations. The principle advantage of this type of design over the traditional experiment planned to examine a single question, or a single factor, con­ sists in its greater efficiency and comprehensiveness. This superiority is achieved through the fact that in a factorial experiment, every trial contributes to the answering of every question with almost the same precision as though the whole experiment had been given over to any one of them. In addition to measuring the effect of each of the single factors, the measures of the effects of the interactions of all combinations of factors are made with the same precision.... A third distinct advantage of factorial design is that this plan gives results of wider applicability than do single experiments, since the exact standardization of experimental conditions prescribed for the tra­ ditional experimental design gives information only in respect to a narrowly restricted set of conditions. In the factorial design the ingredients may be varied, that is, applied at different levels, whereas in the single-factor experiments standardization requires that the other factors be kept constant. (18) In experimental situations the factorial design represents a method of observing the effects of treatments on subjects where the latter may be observed in their natural setting.

In survey situations this advantage

must be even more obvious since the "treatments" have already been applied in complex combinations. LEVEL OP FATHERS* EDUCATION IN RELATION TO CITIZENSHIP The composition of Factorial Design No. 1.

The number of cells in

the factorially designed analysis of variance is equal to the cumulative products of the levels of each factor.

The number of cases in each cell

38 must be constant, and hence is a function of the number of factors and levels selected and also of the size and heterogeneity of the total sample at hand.

Despite the fact that there were about 10,000 cases in the total

sample at hand from which to draw in arranging the factorial design, only five factors of the nine available factors could be considered and still provide more than a mere half-dozen cases for a cell. The five factors selected were level of fathers* education (three levels) and sex, grade in school, residence and home environment, each of which was dichotomized in this design.

There were insufficient cases in

all combinations of race, political party preference, geographical region and religion.

For the 48 cells required for five factors it was still

possible to select at random 20 cases to comprise each cell, making a total of 960 cases.

The three levels of fathers* education consisted of

students whose fathers had not finished high school, students whose fathers had finished high school but who had not gone to college, and students whose fathers had gone to or finished college.

Sex divided into boys and girls.

Two levels of grade in school included 9th and 10th graders combined and n t h and 12th graders combined.

Residence was divided into rural (under

2500 population) and urban (2500 or more population).

Income level of the

original report was, for the analysis of variance, changed to "Home Environ­ ment", whose dividing point came between scores of 5 and 6 on the House and Home scale.

This was necessary since the House and Home scale contains the

item concerning whether a student *s father finished high school.

With the

original dichotomization made between scores of 6 and 7, no student could then have qualified for any combination or cell requiring high environmental status and grade school education of the father.

39 The 48 cells of what will be called Factorial Design No. 1 are shown in Table 6,

Cell No. 1 contains 20 boys, all of whom have the same five

characteristics. They are in the

9th and 10th grades in high school,

their fathers have not completed high school, they live in rural areas and their homes are rated in the lower category on the House and Home scale.

The 20 boys in Cell No. 2 differ from those in Cell No. 1 only in

home environment level.

In similar manner the other 46 cells, each con­

taining 20 students, can be interpreted by referring to the coding at the top of each column. Analysis of variance of the 19-item scale scores. Three main statistical assumptions underly the technique of analysis of variance. The first is that cases in each cell must be randomly selected from sub­ samples of all cases of a given combination.

The 10,000 cards were first

broken down into the 48 combinations by means of the IBM Sorter.

Then 20

cards (the number 20 being determined as the smallest number in any com­ bination from the total sample) were selected at random from each of the sub-samples, thus comprising the factorial design sample.

Each of the 960

cards was then scored on the 19-item scale, the totals of the 20 cases con­ stituting the variable in each cell.

This step would not have been

necessary were it not for the fact that the within groups variation subse­ quently had to be computed as the error variance.

The totals for each cell

could have been obtained by sorting through on each of the 19 "correct" responses.

This was actually done, however, as a check on the scoring of

individual cards. A second main assumption of analysis of variance is that the parent population must be normally distributed on the criterion variable.

Taking

40 Table 6 The 48 Cells (Combinations) of Factorial Design No. 1 Cell Number

1.*

.

2

3. 4* 5.

6. 7.

. . 11.

Fathers * Education 1-Gr School 2-H. School 3-College

21.

.

22 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

1- 9&10 2- 11&12

1-Rural 2-Urban

1

1

1

1 1

1 1 1

1

17. 18. 19. 20 .

1-Boys 2-Girls

1

1 1

.

Residence

1

8

16

Grade

1 1 1

9. 10

12 . 13. 14. 15.

Sex

1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

1 1

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1

1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2

1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2

Home Environment 1-H&H score 5 & under 2-H&H 6&7

1 2

1 2

1 2 1 2 1 2

1 2

1 2

1 2 1 2 1 2

1 2

1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

1

41 Table 6 (continued) Fathers * Education 1-Gr School 2-H. School 3-College

Cell Number

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

Sex

Grade

Residence

1-Boys 2-Girls

1- 9&10 2- 11&12

1-Rural 2-Urban

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

2 1

2 1

1 1

1

1 2 2 2 2

Home Environment 1-H&H score 5 & under 2-H&H 6&7

2 2

2 1 2 1 2

1

1

1 2 2

2 1 2

the distribution of scores of the random sample of 153 cases, originally used in doing the item analysis, and graduating a normal curve on the basis of the mean, standard deviation and total number of cases, the Chi Square was computed to be 5*299 with 11 degrees of freedom.

The probability

of obtaining by chance a Chi Square that large or larger, given those degrees of freedom, is slightly better than 90 times in a hundred.

This

was sufficient evidence that the total sample was probably normally distri­ buted on the criterion variable. A third assumption is that the variations in all the cells are homo­ geneous.

To test this assumption, the criterion of likelihood was employed.

This is the geometric mean of the 48 variances divided by their arithmetic mean.

Obtaining an "L" of .920, which is beyond the 1 percent level in its

deviation from unity, it appears that the variation of the cell totals from one to another is beyond that which could be expected by chance alone. Several empirical studies have been conducted on the consequences of using ordinary analysis of variance methods when the variances of the cells are

42 not homogeneous.

Cochran explains:

If ordinary analysis of variance methods are used when the true error variance differs from one observation to another, there will as a rule be a loss of efficiency in the estimates of treatments. Simi­ larly, there will be a loss of sensitivity in tests of significance, especially if the variance changes are large. Since, however, some treatment comparisons may have much smaller errors than others, t-tests from a pooled error may give a serious distortion of the significance.(8) Since we might be erring on the conservative side or we might be finding more significant F ratios than are warranted, we must probably insist upon high levels of significance for interpreting results of Factorial Design No. 1. Results of the analysis are given in Table 7, the hypothesis tested being that the differences occurring from one cell to another are chance differences or the result of random sampling.

The hypothesis for all main

effects, excluding sex, is then rejected, since the F ratios obtained are all beyond that required for the one percent level of significance, when we enter the F tables with 2 degrees of freedom for fathers* education, one degree of freedom for the other main effects and 912 degrees of freedom for the error variance.

For level of fathers* education, for example, this

means that the obtained differences in citizenship attitudes expressed by students whose fathers* education varied in level attained could have oc­ curred by chance alone far fewer times than once in a hundred, all other factors dealt with, individually or in combination, being held constant. There is always the possibility, of course, that the obtained differences may be due to some uncontrolled factor or factors.

The same type of

interpretation may be given for the other three significant main effects — grade in school, residence and income level. Table 8 gives the statistics necessary for evaluating the differences

43 Table 7 Analysis of Variance of Citizenship Scores on 19-Item Scale Factorial Design No. 1 DF

Source of Variation

Sum of Square8

Mean Squares

F Ratio

959 912

10869.296 9377.

11.334 10.282

Main Effects Fathers’ Education Sex Grade Residence Home Environment

2 1 1 1 1

299.140 18.704 315.104 98.817 367.538

149.570 18.704 315.104 98.817 367.538

1st Order Interactions FE X Sex FE X Grade FE X Residence FE X Home Environment Sex X Grade Sex X Residence Sex X Home Environment Grade X 'Residence Grade X Home Environment Residence X Home Env

2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

5.402 75.352 3.602 40.731 .2 2.817 10.004 11.267 .038 .15

2.701 37.676 1.801 20.366 .2 2.817 10.004 11.267 .038 .15

.26 3.66* .18 1.98 .01

2nd Order Interactions FE X Sex X Grade FE X Sex X Residence FE X Sex X HE FE X Grade X Res FE X Grade X HE FE X Res X HE Sex X Grade X Res Sex X Grade X HE Sex X Res X HE Grade X Res X HE

2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

15.569 17.065 12.777 17.665 6.494 1.069

7.784 8.532 6.389 8.832 3.247 .534 10.421 1.208 22.817 1.350

.76 .83 .62 .86

3rd Order Interactions FE X Sex X Gr X Res FE X Sex X Gr X HE FE X Sex X Res X HE FE X G r X Res X HE Sex X Gr X Res X HE

2 2 2 2 1

28.273 6.635 9.26$ 86.931 2.396

14.136 3.318 4.632

FE X Sex X Gr X Res X HE 2

3.498

1.749

Total Group Error (Within Groups)

*^1 percent ^*1 percent ^^5 percent “'^5 percent

level level level level

of of of of

significance significance significance significance

10.421 1.208 22.817 1.350

for for for for

2 1 2 1

and and and and

43.466 2.396

912 DF is 4.62 912 DF is 6.66 912 DF is 3.00 912 DF is 3 .8$

—— 14.55** 1.82 30.65** 9.61** 35.75**

.27 .97 1.10 .00 .02

.32 .05 1.01 .12 2.22 .13 1.38

.32 .45 4 .23*

.23 .17

44 Table 8 Statistics for Interpreting 19-Item Scale Main Effect Differences, Factorial Design No. 1 Group

Means

N

320 320 320

10,10

Grades 9 and 10 Grades 11 and 12

480 480

8.75 9.90

Rural Urban

480 480

9.01 9.65

Home Environment 1 Home Environment 2

480 480

8,71 9.95

Fathers’ Education — Fathers’ Education — Fathers’ Education —

Grade School High School College

8.79

9.09

■^Significantly lower than (3) at the 1 percent level. **Signifleantly lower than (3) at the 1 percent level.

that occur among cells of a given significant factor.

Thus for the main

effect of grade, students of the 11th and 12th grades demonstrate in their responses citizenship attitudes superior to those in this design of the 9th and 10th grades, as shown by the mean scores on the 19-item scale of

9.90 and 8.75*

For the main effect of residence, urban students obtained

better scores than did rural studen'ts.

The magnitude of this difference,

while significant at the one percent level, is smaller than that obtained between school grade levels.

The main effect, home environment, likewise

shows a substantial difference in favor of Home Environment 2 students over Home Environment 1 students.

With the main effect of fathers’ education,

there are three levels to consider.

Although this main effect is also

significant at the one percent level, mere inspection of the means does not indicate which differences are the significant ones.

It is therefore

necessary to conduct separate t-tests between the three means, using as the

45 standard error of a mean the square root of the within groups variance divided by the square root of the number of cases involved in computing the means.

From Table 8, then, we can see that students whose fathers

attended college demonstrate a real superiority in citizenship attitudes over both those groups of students whose fathers attended only high school or only grade school.

The difference between the latter groups of students,

while in favor of students whose fathers attended high school over those whose fathers attended only grade school, is not a significant one. Explaining the interactions that may be significant at the five percent level (depending upon the direction of discrepancies in F ratios, if any, induced by lack of homogeneity of the variances) is somewhat more complicated. According to Palmer Johnson (18) interaction is said to exist when two or more factors are involved such that increases or decreases in one (or more) factor^) influence increases or decreases in the other factor or factors, or vice versa*

To put it conversely, two or more factors show ^

interaction

if they tend to vary together consistently within chance fluctuations.

For

the significant interaction of fathers* education and grade in school, illustration may be made by means of a contingency table of mean scores made by each of the six combinations involved.

According to Table 9> the

fact that the differences between the obtained and expected means of the six combinations are not close to zero is indicative of an interaction effect.

Or to put it another way, if the differences between obtained

means within each column were virtually equal for all columns, this would mean no interaction.

In Table 9 the obtained column mean differences are

.63, 1.93 and .39, respectively.

In the main the interaction is probably

accounted for by the low scores made by 9th and 10th graders whose parents finished but did not go beyond high school or by the similarity of 11th and

46 12th grade scores made by the two groups of students whose fathers attended high school and college.

Table 9 Obtained and (Expected) Means of the Six Combinations Comprising the Grade and Fathers* Education Interaction Fathers* Education

11th & 12th Grades Differences (0-E) 9th & 10th Grades Differences (O-E)

Obtained column mean differences

Grade School

High School

College

9.11 (9.29)

10.06 (9.59)

10.05 (10.35)

—•18

+.45

-.30

8.13

9.66

8.48 (8.31)

(8.61)

(9.37)

+.17

— •48

+ .29

.63

1.93

.39

From the foregoing attempt at explaining a first-order interaction, it can be well imagined how complex the explanation of the third-order interaction involving the four factors of fathers* education, grade, residence and home environment would be, if indeed this is actually an interaction.

Table 10 gives merely the N*s and means of each level of

these four factors.

Both the first-order and third-order interactions

were significant at only the five percent level.

Since it will be recalled

that the assumption of homogeneity of variances was not satisfied in this analysis of variance, there is a distinct possibility that both these interactions actually are accounted for by random sampling alone.

47 Table 10 Basic Statistics for Interpreting Fathers* Education, Grade, Residence and Home Environment Interaction Group F.E. — G.S., F.E. — G.S., F.E. — G.S., F.E. ——G.S., F.E. — G.S., F.E.— G.S., F.E. — G.S., F.E.——G.S., F.E.— H.S., F.E.— H.S., F.E.— H.S., F.E.— H.S., F.E.— H .8., F.E.— H.S., F.E. — H.S., F.E.— H.S., F.E.— Coll, F.E.— Coll, F.E.— Coll, F.E.— Coll, F.E.— Coll, F.E.— Coll, F.E.— Coll, F.E.— CoH,

9 9 9 9 11 11 11 11 9 9 9 9 11 11 11 11 9 9 9 9 11 11 11 11

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

10, 10, 10, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12, 10, 10, 10, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12, 10, 10, 10, 10, 12, 12, 12, 12,

Rur, Rur, Urb, Urb, Rur, Rur, Urb, Urb, Rur, Rur, Urb, Urb, Rur, Rur, Urb, Urb, Rur, Rur, Urb, Urb, Rur, Rur, Urb, Urb,

HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE

1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

N

Means

40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

7.63 8.60 8.88 8.80

40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

8.40 8.93 8.93 10.18

6.65 8.53

8.05 9.30 9.55 10.63

9.30 10.75

8.90 9.65 8.68

11.40 9.13 11.50 10.43 11.10

48 TYPE OF FATHERS* EDUCATION IN RELATION TO CITIZENSHIP Factorial Design No. 2.

To investigate the citizenship expressions

of high school students in relation to the type of their fathers* education, a new factorial arrangement was necessary.

In all, about 750 students had

reported that their fathers attended or finished college and had further­ more given an indication of their fathers* main course of study.

In com­

posing the factorial sample, the 750 would, of course, be the maximum num­ ber of cases.

Inclusion of other factors to be examined concurrently would

depend partly upon the extent to which these students were evenly divided on all other cross-classifications.

These students were about evenly

divided on the factors of sex, grade, and home environment.

By including

urban-rural status or any other factor in this design, the minimum number of cases for any cell would be very small.

By confining the design to

type of fathers* education, sex, grade and home environment, it was found that the minimum number of cases for any of the resulting 16 cells or combinations would be 25.

Since each factor was now to be dichotomized,

the total number of cases in the sample would be 400. Type of fathers* education was divided into two levels — specialized.

general and

General education, it was decided, would include college work

where the main course of study was any of the following:

political science,

teaching, psychology, sociology, economics, history, journalism, languages, literature, religion, philosophy, art, music or architecture.

Specialized

education was to include agriculture, forestry, business, management, law, engineering, mathematics, the physical sciences, medicine, dentistry or pharmacy.

The decisions as to which courses of study would be considered

-general or specialized were made on the basis of whether a course of study

49 was likely to include a wide and varied selection of minors, especially in the humanities, or whether the course of study probably included many technical subjects with little emphasis upon the humanities.

This test

was thought to provide the best approximation to the Time survey criterion of "general" versus "mostly specific training for an occupation", with the least tax on the imagination of the high school respondents. Table 11 has been prepared to show the composition of the Factorial Design No. 2 sample by major college course of study of the students* fathers.

The factors of sex, grade in school and home environment were

divided into levels as before.

The l6 combinations of Factorial Design No. 2

are shown in Table 12 and are to be interpreted in the same manner as the combinations of Factorial Design No. 1 in Table 6. _

_

_

Factorial Design No. 2 by Type of Education of Fathers Specialized Education Agriculture and Forestry Business and Management Law Engineering Mathematics Physical Sciences Medicine and Dentistry Pharmacy General Education Psychology and Sociology Teaching Political Science or Economics History Journalism Languages and Literature Religion and Philosophy Art and Music Architecture

Number 13

61 31 49 11 3 26 6 200 Number 12 66 22 7 13 14 36 14 16 200

50 Table 12 The 16 Cells (Combinations) of Factorial Design No. 2 Cell Number

Fathers * Education 1-Special 2-General

1. 2. 34* 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Sex

Grade

1-Boys 2-Girls

1-9&10 2-11&12

1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2

1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2

Home Environment l-H&H score 5 & under 2-H&H 6&7 1/ 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

Analysis of variance of the 19-item scale scores. The 4OO cards were scored on the 19-item scale and totals for the 25 cases in each cell were obtained. again considered.

The assumptions underlying analysis of variance were It has already been stated the scores of a random

sample of students from the total group were normally distributed.

This

was also true of the scores of the 400 students selected from the sub­ sample of students whose fathers had attended college.

The selection of

students for each cell was random from the total 750 students divided into their I6 possible combinations.

The third assumption of homogeneity

of variances among the I6 cells was also satisfied, since the criterion of likelihood was this time .962, well within the limits for chance deviation from unity.

51 Results of the analysis of variance for Factorial Design No. 2, using scores on the 19-item scale as the criterion variable, are given in Table

13. Here we see that the main effect, grade in school, is highly signi­ ficant, when we control all other main effects and interactions.

Fathers*

education and home environment are significant at the five percent level and the interaction of fathers* education and grade in school is almost significant at the five percent level.

Turning again to statistical in­

formation that tells us the direction of the differences involved, we find in Table I4 that the 200 students with fathers whose college education was general express citizenship on the 19-item scale superior to that of the 200 students whose fathers* college education was specialized.

In

addition, we see that the 200 students in the 11th and 12th grades obtain better scores than do those in the 9th and 10th grades.

Students

qualifying under the classification. Home Environment 2 make better scores than those with the classification. Home Environment 1.

Girls also make

better scores than do boys, although this superiority is not demonstrable at a high level of significance. Table 14 also gives the statistics necessary for interpreting the almost significant interaction between fathers* education and grade in school.

The difference between citizenship of students with fathers who

took general college work and students whose fathers took specialized college work is mainly demonstrated at the 9th and 10th grades rather than at the n t h and 12th.

Or, to look at it from the point of view of in­

creasing expressions of citizenship from the lower to the upper grades in school, the students with "specialized fathers" show a greater increase in citizenship than those with "general fathers", although the latter start

52 Table 13 Analysis of Variance of Citizenship Scores on 19-Item Scale Source of Variation

Mean Squares

Total Group (399 DF) Error (Within Groups, 394 DF)

10.767 9.953

î'Iain Effects Fathers* Education Sex Grade in School Home Environment

54.020 34.223

1st Order Interactions FE X Sex FE X Grade FE X Home Environment Sex X Grade Sex X Home Environment Grade X Home Environment 2nd Order Interactions FE X Sex X Grade FE X Sex X Home Environment FE X Grade X Home Environment Sex X Grade X Home Environment 3rd Order Interaction FE X Sex X Grade X Home Env

F Ratio —

203.063

5.43* 3.45 20.40**

45.563

4.58*

7 . 56 5

.76 3.80* .38 .00

37.325 3.805

.003 10.563 18.923

1.06 1.90

3.060 4.620 10.560 8.703

.31 .46 1.06

3.805

.38

.87

**1 percent level of significance for 1 and 394 DF is 6.70 *5 percent level of significance for 1 and 394 DF is 3.86

53 Table 14 Statistics for Interpreting Significant Main Effects and Interactions, Factorial Design No. 2, 19-Item Scale Main Effect Groups

N

Mean

200 200

10.50 11.24

Grades 9 and 10 Grades 11 and 12

200 200

10,16 11.58

Home Environment 1 Home Environment 2

200 200

10.53 11.21

100 100 100 100

9*48 10.83 H.52 11.64

Fathers* Education — Fathers* Education —

Specialized General

Interaction Group FE FE FE FE

— — — —

Specialized, Grades 9 and 10 General, Grades 9 and 10 Specialized, Grades 11 and12 General, Grades 11 and 12

with higher citizenship and attain slightly superior citizenship by the time they reach the 11th and 12th grades.

This interaction could thus be

explained as differentials in rates of change of attitudes. Analysis of variance of the four sub-scale scores. The four sub-scales were developed because the 19-item scale, while purified by item analysis, still obviously contained heterogeneous items.

We have shown that the

19-items, nevertheless, do discriminate between groups of students characterized by type of their fathers* college education, their grade in school, and the nature of their home environment. however, that all items

This is not proof,

^re of equal or near equal value ; there is no

evidence that items originally designed to represent tolerance toward minority or foreign groups and countries, for example, account for any differences we have obtained.

54 Analysis of variance of the four sub-scales was then carried out in the hope that some amplification of the 19-item scale relationships might ensue.

It could be expected that in general one or more of three things

would result : some or all analyses would show the same results that were obtained on the 19-item scale; no significant main effects or interactions would result; some new significant main effects and interactions would be found.

If some of the scales accounted for the significant results obtained

on the 19-item scale, the purpose of amplifying the original results would be achieved.

If no significant main effects or interactions were to result,

there would be possible support to the contention that the items of the larger scale, while individually or in small groups non-discriminating, are partially additive, so that in the larger combination they form a meaningful scale.

If new significant main effects and interactions were to be found on

individual sub-scales, then there would be evidence that 1) the 19-item scale either was not measuring all the things that the sub-scales were, since the sub-scales include some items not included on the 19-item scale, or that 2) the 19-item total, in lacking homogeneity among the items, was obscuring important results. The variances of the 16 cells for each of the analyses of variance were found to vary only within chance limits, so that the assumption of homogeneity of variances was satisfied. distributed.

The sub-scale scores are not, however, normally

The bulk of investigations concerned with non-satisfying of

analysis of variance assumptions have been directed at the problem of non­ normality of data.

Cochran (8) concludes that no serious error is intro­

duced by non-normality in the signficance levels of the F-test or of the two-tailed t-test.

If anything, non-normality is likely to be accompanied

55 by a loss of efficiency in the estimation of treatment effects and a cor­ responding loss of power in the F and t-tests.

It would appear, then, that

errors due to non-normality do not distort obtained significances.

Signifi­

cant F-ratios obtained in these analyses can be looked upon as conservative estimates. Results of all four analyses are shown in Table 15, which includes only significant or near-significant main effects and interactions. On the Politics sub-scale, differences in scores of students by type of fathers* education are not quite significant at the five percent level, sex differences are significant at the five but not quite at the one percent level and an interaction between sex and grade is significant at the five percent level. On the Government sub-scale, differences in s cores due to type of fathers* education are significant at the five and possibly at the two percent level, grade differences are highly significant and home environment differences are significant almost at the five percent level.

There are no

significant interactions for this sub-scale. On the Civic Relations sub-scale only grade differences are signifi­ cant and then at the five percent level. On the World scale sex differences are significant almost at the one percent level, and the differences accounting for the interaction of fathers* education and grade are highly significant. Concerning the relationship between type of fathers* education and citizenship, results in favor of the students whose fathers had general college education are probably accounted for almost entirely by the contri­ bution of the Government sub-scale questions.

The Civic Relations and

World sub—scales appear to contribute little to the difference in citizenship

56 Table 15 Analysis of Variance of Politics, Government, Civic Relations and World Sub-Scales, Factorial Design No. 2 Source of Variation

Mean Squares

F Ratio

Politics Total Group (399 DF) Within Groups (394 DF) Fathers' Education Sex Grade Sex X Grade

2.872 2.750

-

9.923 18.063 18.923 11.903

3.61 6.57* 6.88** 4.33*

2.316 2.120

-

11.560 51.840 7.840

5.45* 24.45** 3.70

1.516 1.487

---

Government Total Group (399 DF) Within Groups (394 DF) Fathers' Education Grade Home Environment Civic Relations Total Group (399 DF) Within Groups (395 DF) Grade

6.760

4.55'^'

World Total Group (399 DF) Within Groups (394DF) Sex Fathers* Education X Grade

1.869 1.813 11.560 15.210

-— 6.38* 8.39^'’

**1 percent level of significance for 394 aud 1 DF is 6.70 *5 percent level of significance for 394 and 1 DF is 3.86

57 expressions (as measured by all 19 items) by students characterized by the type of their fathers' college education.

The fact that girls are

significantly better citizens than boys on the criteria

of the Politics

and World scales, but not on the larger scales, may mean that these dif­ ferences were obscured by the 19-item scale or that the Politics and World scales contain items important for measuring sex differences in attitudes that were omitted from the 19-item scale.

Finally, the fathers' education-

grade interaction appears to be largely accounted for by the World sub­ scale. DISCUSSION In the design wherein the relationship between citizenship attitudes and the level of education of the father is studied, results largely substantiate the results of the item-by-item analysis of the PURDUE OPINION PANEL Report No. 22.

There it had been found that, item by item, the

responses of the experts tended to be given more by students of high income homes, by students of urban status, by 11th and 12th graders, and by students whose fathers attended college than by students of the counterparts of those classifications.

One advantage of using an analysis of variance

based on a factorial design to corroborate those results is that the possible overlapping of these classification groups is taken into account.

In other

words, the superiority of the students whose fathers attended college is shown, grade, home environment, residence, sex and all interactions among these factors being equal, or held constant.

(It is true that "home

environment" and "high/low income" do not mean exactly the same thing since they represent different dichotomizations of the House and Home scale. In general, however, the comparison is believed to be valid.)

58 The ability factor. At least one important factor could not be in­ cluded in the survey and study —

that of intellectual status of the student.

Grade in school, however, gave some indication of the factor of information, and this was shown to bear possibly the strongest relationship to citizenship, as measured, of any of the factors.

This is entirely to be expected, since

the "correct" responses to many items depend upon knowledge.

This type of

finding would normally suggest that the schools are influencing its students in the right direction, as far as citizenship training is concerned, if, but only if the following conditions also hold:

that 11th and 12th graders

are not, through selective elimination, different from the 9th and 10th graders in respects other than increased schooling and that 11th and 12th graders are not developing in citizenship through other non-school influences, common to 11th and 12th graders, not controlled in this study.

There is no

way of telling from this study how selective elimination of students before the 11th and 12th grades affected the significance of results obtained.

To

obviate this difficulty it probably would have been necessary to employ some kind of intellectual ability test as an additional factor for purposes of such control. The interaction effects. The testing of interactions represented an attempt to control or examine combinations of factors that influence the citizenship attitudes of high school students.

The fathers* education

(level)-grade interaction of Factorial Design No. 1 suggests that levels of fathers* education bear a definite relationship to the citizenship of 9th and 10th graders.

Level of fathers* education also bears a relationship to

scholastic ability of the students, but this cannot be proved here. possible explanation of the interaction (see Table 9) is as follows.

A

59 assuming that scholastic ability of the student is positively correlated with the level of education attained by the father;

9th and 10th graders

with college-trained fathers already have been trained for good citizen­ ship and hence do not show as much increase by the 11th and 12th grades. Students with high-school-trained fathers, although they show low initial citizenship, apparently have the ability to gain much in citizenship by the 11th and 12th grades.

Then the ability of 9th and 10th graders to improve

whose fathers did not complete high school is not as high as that of the other groups of stidents, and hence they do not profit as much as do the students of the middle group.

These remarks, especially in the absence of

a measure of ability of the subjects, must remain tentative. On the other hand, selective elimination could have accounted for the entire interaction, for we would expect fewer students whose fathers attended college to drop out, but more students of the other groups to drop out.

If this is actually the case, the 11th and 12th graders whose

fathers are college-trained have not been weeded out as much as have been students whose fathers did not complete high school or who did not attend college. Citizenship attitudes and education. In Factorial Design No. 2 there were no PURDUE OPINION PANEL data to corroborate but a fresh hypothesis to explore —

that type of education of the fathers of a restricted sample of

students bore relationship to the citizenship attitudes they held.

The

results indicate superiority of citizenship attitudes of students whose fathers had more general college education than technical or specialized, when sex, grade and home environment have been controlled. In Chapter 1 it was reported that information is a potent determiner

60 of attitudes where factual knowledge gives an insight into implications of an issue. (45)

The items of this survey were partially selected so

that the element of knoi^dge of democratic principles and practices would be reflected therein.

By inference, then, information level and the

ability to intellectualize must be positively associated with high scores on these items. In this investigation of the influence of type of fathers* education upon citizenship, grade in school and home environment each appear important to good citizenship by themselves.

Again, as in the previous section, grade

in school may be expected to bear an important relationship to citizenship, at least as an index of the amount of information a student has.

To a

limited extent, this may also be true of the home environment factor.

The

House and Home scale upon which the home environment factor was based probably measures in reality (although roughly) both income level of the home and a kind of cultural level. deal with material possessions — phone and vacuum cleaner.

The first five questions of the scale automobile, bathtub, refrigerator, tele­

The sixth question asks about whether a student

had private lessons in such areas as music, arts or elocution.

The

seventh question, **Did your father finish high school?** as we have shown \ was necessarily answered in the affirmative by all students of this restricted sample. not differentiate

Now questions about material possessions probably do among

students of college-educated fathers.

There is

a good possibility, therefore, that the question dealing with paid lessons in **cultural** areas was the crucial one in determining the possible infor­ mation-cultural level of the home. The reasoning that was applied to the interaction between level of

61 fathers* education and grade may be applied to the interaction between type of fathers* education and grade.

The 9th and 10th graders with

fathers who took general education are much better citizens than the 9th and 10th graders whose fathers took special education.

Here there is a

better case for supposing that these two groups are equal in scholastic ability if we may assume that the fathers with general education are equal in ability to fathers with specialized education.

Then 9th and 10th

grade students with "specialized** fathers, while not as good citizens as their counterparts, through education become virtually as good citizens as their counterparts by the 11th and 12th grades, always assuming, of course, that the selection factor operates equally for both groups. Of course it is an open question whether these students are better citizens because of the education their fathers had, implying an influencing of the citizenship of the student by the father, or whether they are better citizens because of other influences that affected father and child alike. Or, in the Time findings the college graduates who had taken general college courses may have been better citizens for the same reasons they had taken the general or liberal education. Nevertheless, to the extent that the questions included in these two surveys are valid measures of what we call citizenship, the two surveys have succeeded in demonstrating important correlates between the type of education a man receives at the college level and his achievement and his children's achievement of some of the goals of education for promoting a better life in our times. Factorial design applied ^

attitudes toward the Negro. In an

investigation of high school students* attitudes toward Negroes conducted by

62 Gage (il) using items and data from the PURDUE OPINION PANEL No. 13, similar procedures as outlined in this study failed to produce many significant results.

The measuring instrument employed was a seven-item

scale which had the characteristic of unidimensionality developed through application of the Guttman-Comell technique. (14)

Gage concluded

At least for the type of attitude considered here, the question should be raised whether relatively "sociological" factors such as sex, grade and economic status are as worthy of investigation as other more "psychological'* factors. The failure of most of the personal-data factors and their interactions, considered here, to be significantly associated with differences in attitudes toward Negroes certainly points in this direction. Results of the current study were fairly significant in spite of the numerous limitations of procedure and data. differences between the two studies. among his sample elements.

There were, of course, many

Gage's scale failed to discriminate

Perhaps other scales measuring attitudes

toward the Negro would discriminate.

A possible reason for the significant

results of this study is that the citizenship measures contained items dependent upon amount of information and consequently scores obtained correlated with factors where amount of information was an obvious variable. On the other hand, there is no assurance that Gage's subjects did not also intellectualise their responses. Limitations of this study. The investigator readily acknowledges that many features of this study were insufficiently handled, partly because of the limitations imposed by the PURDUE OPINION PANEL, and partly because of his own inexperience.

The questions were limited in type, scope and number be­

cause of a desire to duplicate as much as possible the design of the Time survey items.

The method of detemning which students had fathers with

general education and which specialized education left much to be desired.

63 The statistical limitations of the study have been discussed in detail, especially the methods involved in developing the measuring instruments. Finally, the fact that the study was a survey study, that is, treatments accorded the subjects could not be manipulated but merely observed, meant that interpretation of results was necessarily limited to the expression of relationships.

64 CHAPTER 5 SU13MARY AND CONCLUSIONS The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships that certain social variables bear to the quality of good citizenship. Tentative findings of a recent survey by Time of a sample of the nation's college graduates had been reported to the effect that those college graduates whose education had been mostly general held citizenship opinions more in line with those expressed by a group of experts than did college graduates whose education had been mostly preparation for an occupation. The main specific purpose of this study was then to find whether students whose fathers had had general college education were better citizens (held more acceptable attitudes) than students whose fathers* college education was mostly preparation for an occupation.

Other specific

purposes of the study included the examination of other social variables in relation to citizenship of high school students. In order to measure citizenship of high school students through their expressions or attitudes, it was first necessary to define the concept of citizenship.

The operational definition of citizenship for this study was

responses to questions designed to reflect the citizenship readiness of these students in terms of attitudes toward democratic

living and

knowledges and appreciations of democratic principles,

and in termsof the

degree of conscience which high school boys and girls develop

towardthe

formal duties of the citizen in the democracy. Expressions of citizenship were obtained from a sample of about 10,000 high school students throughout the country through the PURDUE OPINION PANEL mechanism.

Poll No. 22 was devoted largely to this purpose.

Using

65 item analysis, 19 items were found to correlate fairly highly with the total of 26 questions used in the poll.

This 19-item scale constituted

the first criterion for measuring citizenship of the subjects.

Four

separate sub-scales were also developed in an attempt to represent citizen­ ship in its various components.

The criterion of good citizenship for each

item was determined as the consensus of response by a group of 21 Purdue University social scientists. Factorially-designed analysis of variance was used to examine the scores made on the five scales, considered first in relationship to level of fathers* education and other factors and then considered in relation­ ship to type of fathers* education and other factors.

Only the 19-item

scale scores were employed in examining citizenship in relation to level of fathers* education and other variables.

All five scale scores were used

in examining citizenship in relation to type of fathers* education. The factorial design has the advantages of enabling the investigator to examine several problems at the same time and to provide precise tests of significance.

Moreover, the interactions of the various factors upon

the criterion variable can be determined. necessary for the analysis.

Two factorial designs were

For Factorial Design No. 1 the three levels

of amount of fathers* education and the two levels of each of four other factors (sex, grade, urban-rural status, and home environment status) were included in the sample in each of their possible combinations with the four other factors.

This required 48 combinations, with 20 cases in each com­

bination being randomly selected from the total sample, making a total of

960 cases.

For Factorial Design No. 2 two levels of each of four factors

(type of fathers* education, sex, grade and home environment status) were

66 included in this sample.

This design required 16 combinations and it was

possible to include 25 cases in each combination to make a total of 400 in the total sample. CONCLUSIONS Results of Factorial Design No. 1, as revealed by its significant main effects and interactions justify several conclusions when these main effects and interactions are further analyzed.

Other factors in the study equal,

those students provide better citizenship responses on the measuring instru­ ment developed who: 1.

have fathers who attended college;

2.

or

3*

orwho live in urban areas;

4#

or

who

who

are in the 11th and 12th gradesinhighschool;

come from homes of higher environmentalstatus.

In addition, there is the possibility that a combination of the factors of level of fathers* education and grade in school accounts for some of the differences in citizenship attitudes of high school students over and above those differences to be expected from the combination of one and two above. There is also the suggestion from more complex interaction findings that level of fathers * education, grade in high school, urban-rural residence, euid home environment are jointly related with citizenship attitudes of high school students, over and above the relations expressed in one to four above. Several additional conclusions appear to be justified from results of Factorial Design No. 2, based on the sample of students whose fathers had attended or completed college.

IVhen scores of the 19—item scale are

analyzed, there is evidence to the following :

67 1.

that students whose fathers had general college education are

better citizens than students whose fathers had mainly specialized work in college, grade, sex, home environment and combinations of these factors being equal; 2.

that 11th and 12th graders are better citizens than 9th and 10th

graders, fathers* education, sex, home environment and combinations of these factors being equal; 3 m that students of scores on the House

from the higher home environment status, in terms and Home scale, are better

citizens than students

from lower home environment status, fathers* education, sex, grade, and combinations of these factors being equal; 4* and

that there is

interaction effect between

grade in school in accounting for some of the

type of fathers* education citizenship attitudes*If

there is no significant difference in drop-out rate between high school students whose fathers had general college education and students whose fathers had specialized college education, 9th and 10th graders of the former category are better citizens than 9th and 10th graders of the latter category, but 11th and 12th graders of the former are no better citizens than 11th and 12th graders of the latter. From the analysis of variance conducted on scores of the four sub-scales, using Factorial Design No. 2, the following in amplification of the above was concluded; 1.

the significant differences between students classified by type of

fathers* education is probably accounted for largely by the Government sub­ scale . 2,

the significant high school grade differences are accounted for by

6B the Politics, Government, and Civic Relations sub-scales; 3-

there are differences in citizenship in favor of girls over boys,

other factors being equal, when the Politics and World sub-scales are used as partial measures of citizenship, but not when the 19-item scale is used; 4#

9th and 10th grade girls whose fathers attended college obtain

better scores on the Politics sub-scale than 9th and 10th grade boys whose fathers attended college, other factors in the study held constant. 5*

9th and 10th grade students whose fathers had general education

in college obtain better scores on the World sub-scale than 9th and 10th grade students whose fathers* college education was mainly specialized, other factors in the study held constant. BIPLIGATIONS Men and women need to live, but they can be poor in spirit, feeble in powers, hateful in disposition, low in civilization, and disruptive in in­ fluence, even if rich in material goods. No society can be founded on purely pecuniary standards, or can endure if so founded, or can give to life that richness of satisfaction and opportunity which makes it worth the living. And upon education is laid an obligation to see that the youth of the land possess the cultural values which sustain society, hold the conflicts of politics and economy within bounds, and enrich life itself. (47) If it can be concluded that the citizenship attitudes of these high school students has been influenced in part by the education received in school and in part by parental-horae educative forces, then the obligation of education for teaching cultural values is a reasonable one.

If it can

also be concluded that the type of education an individual receives at the college level has an effect upon his attitudes and through him upon those around him, we can extend Pace *s evidence for the liberalizing of educa­ tional curricula which have in more recent years emphasized development of the economic and the political man.

69 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH !•

This study is considered worthy of repetition with more refined

statistical techniques employed.

Treating each response as point-distri­

buted and hence leaving out the "Undecided" response, attempts at factor and scale analysis may prove more successful. 2m

Improvement of the instrument for measuring home environment is

called for or use of longer available instruments. 3*

There is need in this type of study for measures of intellectual

ability and various personality traits that may have a bearing on citizenship. 4«

The influence of the effect of specific humanity and social science

courses upon measured citizenship could be examined in a given school or college or in groups of schools or colleges, where scholastic ability, oc­ cupational objectives and other variables can be readily controlled. 5.

Proper evaluation of citizenship unquestionably requires many

measurements in addition to measurements of citizenship attitudes, among these being tests of crucial activities related to citizenship.

70 BIBLIOGRAPHY 1.

Adkins, Dorothy, Construction and Analysis of Achievement Tests. Washin^on; U. S. Government Printing Office, 1947.

2.

Barkley, K, L., Relative influence of commercial and liberal arts curricula upon changes in students* attitudes- J. soc. Psychol., 1942, 15, 129-44. “ ------

3*

Breslaw, B. J., The development of a socio-economic attitude. Arch. Psychol.. 1938, Wo. 226.

4*

Bugelski, R. & Lester, 0. P., Changes in attitudes in a group of college students during their college course and after graduation, J. soc. Psychol.. 1940, 15, 319-332.

5.

Campbell, D. W. & Stover, G, P., Teaching intemational-mindedness in the social studies, J. educ. Sociol.. 1933, 7, 244-248.

6.

Cantril, H., The use of breakdowns. In Cantril, H. (Ed.) Gauging Public Opinion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944? Pp 175194.

7.

Chisholm, G. B., Social responsibility, J. soc. Issues, 1948, 4? 6-13.

8.

Cochran, W. G., Some consequences when the assumptions for the analysis of variance are not satisfied. Biometrics. 1947? 3? 22-38.

9.

Corey, S. M., Attitude differences between college classes: a summary and criticism, J. educ. Psychol.. 1936, 27? 321-330.

10.

Edison, C., The seven deadly sins of citizenship? Talks, 1949? 14? 11-13.

11.

Gage, W., Scaling and factorial design in opinion poll analysis, Purdue University Studies in Higher Education, IXI, 1947? Pp 1-87.

12.

Gates, J. W., The Civic Competence of High School Seniors. Ph D thesis. The University of Chicago, 1945.

13.

Guttman, L., The test-retest reliability of qualitative data. Psychometrika, 1946, 11, 81-95*

14. Guttman, L., The Cornell technique for scale and intensity analysis, Educ. & Psychol. Measmt., 1947?^? 247-279. 15. Herrick, T. T., The Developaent of Criteria for Evaluation of Citizenship Training in the Senior High School, Ph D Thesis, University of I«îichigan, 1947. l4fc

Hobson, R. L., A Study of Purdue Opinion Poll for Young People, No. 1? Unpublished Plaster *s Thesis, Purdue University, 1943.

71 17.

Hunter, E. G., Changes in general attitudes of women students during four years in college, J. soc. Psychol., 1942, ^16, 243-257.

18.

Johnson, P. 0., Statistical Methods in Research, New York: Hall, Inc., 1949.

19.

Katz, D. & Cantril, H., An analysis of attitudes toward fascism and communism, abnorm. & soc. Psychol., 1940, 35, 356-366.

20.

Kerr, W. A. & Remmers, H. H., The construction and validation of a group home environment scale. Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science, 1941, 50, 201-206.

21.

Komhauser, A* W., Changes in information and attitudes of students in an economics course, J. educ. Res., 1930, 22, 288-298.

22.

Komhauser, A. W., Attitudes of economic groups, Publ.Opin.Quart.,

Prentice—

1938, 2, 260-268.

23. Levinson, D. J., A scale for the measurement of political-economic conservatism. Amer. Psychologist, 1946, 1, 451.

24.

Lichtenstein, A., Can attitudes be taught?Johns Hopkins University Studies in Education, 1934, No. 21.

25.

Lindquist, E. P., A First Course in Statistics, New York: Mifflin Co., 1942.

26.

Martin, L.M., Our pupils rate themselves. 413-414.

Boughton-

Clearing House, 1942, 16, ^

27. Morgan, J. E. (Sd.), The American Citizens Handbook, Washington : The National Education Association of the U. S., 1946. 28.

Murphy, G. & Likert, R., Public Opinion and the Individual, New York: Harper, 1938.

29. Murphy, G., Murphy, L. B., and Newcomb, T. M., Expe riment al Social Psychology, New York:

Harper & Bros., 1937.

30 . Newcomb, T. M., Some patterned consequences of membership in a college community. In Readings in Social Psychology, New York: Co., 1947, Pp345-377.

31. Olsen, E. G., School and Community, New York:

Henry Holt &

Prentice-Hall, Inc.,

1945.

32 . Pace, C. a., What kind of citizens have our college graduates become? J. gen. Educ.a 1949, %

197-202.

33 . Peters, C. C. & Van Voorhis, W. R., Statistical Procedures and their Mathematical Bases, New York:

McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1940.

72 34.

Peterson, T. D., The relationship between certain attitudes of parents and children. In Remmers, H. H. and Others, Purdue University Studies in Higher Education, XXXI, 1936, 127-144.

35*

Remmers, H. H. and Others, Further studies in attitudes, Purdue University Studies in Higher Education, XXXI, 1936, 15-109.

36 . Ross, G. C., Measurement in Today's Schools, New York: Inc., 1942, Pp 72-109. 37*

Prentice-Hall,

Salner, E. & Remmers, H. H, Affective selectivity and liberalizing influence of college courses, J. appl. Psychol., 1933, 17, 349-354.

38. Shimberg, B,, The relationship between information and attitudes of high school students on certain international issues, Purdue University Studies in Higher Education, IXVIII, 1949? Pp 1-40.

39 . Sletto, R. F., Next steps in social measurement, Sociometry, 1947, 10, 354-361.

40 . Smith, B. 0., Logical Aspects of Educational Measurement, New York: Columbia University Press, 1938.

41. Smith, G. H., Liberalism and level of information, J. educ, Psychol., 1948, 39, 65-81.

"

42. Spaulding, F. T., Report of the Regents Inquiry: High School and Life, New York:

McGraw-Hill Co., 1938, Pp 16-32.

43*

Weltman, N. & Remmers, H. H., Pupils *,parent s *, and teachers* attitudes — similarities and differences, Purdue University Studies in Higher Education, 1946.

44*

Williams, F. ¥., Information as a determinant of opinion. In H. Cantril (Ed.), Gauging Public Opinion, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944, Chapter 15, Pp 209-219.

45*

Williams, F. W. & Hosteller, F., Education and economic status as determinants of opinion. In H. Cantril (Ed.) Gauging Public Opinion, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944, Chapter 14, Pp 195-208.

46. Preliminary Report on the U. S. College Graduate Survey, Time Magazine? 1948. 47,

The Unique Function of Education in American Democracy. Educational Policies Commission, Washington: National Education Association of the Ü. S. and the Department of Superintendence, 1937.

73

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