著者

若林 満 WAKABAYASHI Mitsuru 後藤 宗理 GOTO Motomichi 鹿内 啓子 SHIKANAI Keiko

出版者

名古屋大学教育学部

雑誌

名古屋大學教育學部紀要. 教育心理学科 (ISSN:03874796)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.30, pp.63-98, 1983-12-24

---

The present study is aimed at exploring complex relationships between aspects of self concept, occupational attitudes and occupational choice itself. For this purpose, a set of instruments for measuring self concept and occupational attitudes were developed, based on subjects who were consisted of 875 female junior college students majoring in three different fields of professionalization: kindergartners (n=393), hospital nurses (n=227) and nonprofessional, humanity course students (n=255). They were asked to respond the questionnaire which contained 8 instruments stated as follows. (1) Occupational readiness included 30 statements regarding student's readiness for initiating her occupational life. Subjects rated each one by using a 4-point scale. A composite occupational readiness scale was created by combining 21 items selected by a series of item analyses. (2) The job orientation instrument consisted of 30 items which subjects might want to have as important goals or conditions for their occupations. They were asked to rate each one by using a 5-point scale. This instrument produced 3 orthogonal factors that were labelled as job challenge, human relations and working conditions respectively. (3) The student self-image included 23 adjectives each with a 7-point scale. This instrument produced masculinity and feminimity (M-F) scales by combining a set of adjectives identified to have a stereotyped masculine and a feminine character respectively. (4) Self-evaluated competence consisted of 22 ability dimensions considered to be necessary to lead an occupational life. Subjects were asked to evaluate themselves and to give ratings on each dimension by using a 7-point scale. This instrument produced 3 orthogonal factors labelled as competency, harmoniousness and reliability. (5) Occupational self-image was measured based on the 20 adjective pairs that were presented with a semantic differential format. This instrument was reduced to two composite scales, potency and affinity scales, by combining relevant SD scales. (6) The social-role attitude included 15 statements regarding roles of women in the society, and subjects were asked to rate each one by using a 7-point scale. All items were integrated into a single composite scale named equality in social roles. (7) Satisfaction with college life was measured by using 6 items based on a 7-point scale. (8) Career choice used a single item that asked subject's determination to continue an occupational career life. (9) Finally, the choice of occupation asked subjects to state occupational titles they wanted to be in after graduating from the college, together with the perceived probability (in percentage) of their actually engaging in those occupations. Major results of the analyses conducted by using composite scales described above can be summarized as follows. (1) Inter-correlations among 8 subscales of self concet (masculinity, femininity, competency, harmoniousness, reliability, potency, affinity, and equality in roles) were found all positive and mostly significant statistically. The same pattern of correlations was observed across three subject groups. (2) Correlation coefficients among 4 occupational attitude scales (occupational readiness, job challenges, human relations, working conditions) were found also high and statistically significant. However, the pattern of correlations for the nonprofessional, humanity course students showed an important difference compared to the students in other professionalized fields: kindergartner and nurse students. (3) Some aspects of self concept, particularly potency, mascurinity and role equality scales, showed a strong association with the achievement-oriented occupational scales, i.e., occupational readiness and job challenge. On the other hand, harmoniousness and affinity aspects of self concept showed significant correlations with human relations in job orientation. In addition, the femininity scale was found closely associated with orientation to working conditions. By cross-tabulating the dichotomized masculinity and femininity scales, the following 4 sex-role types were created: high masculinity - high femininity (M-F or androgynous) type, high masculinity - low femininity (Mf or masculine) type, low masculinity - high femininity (mF or feminine) type, and low masculinity and low femininity (mf of undifferentiated) type. Multiple comparisons were attempted based on these four groups with respect to aspects of self concept and occupational scales. Results of the analysis can be summarized as follows. (1) The androgynous, MF type students were shown as having the highest scores on both self conectp and occupational scales, while the undifferentiated, mf type students scored the lowest on these scales. (2) The MF and Mf type students showed the high scores on masculinity,'competency and potency scales, while the MF and mF type students showed high scores on femininity, harmoniousness, reliability and affinity scales. (3) The MF and Mf groups were found to have high scores on occupational readiness and job challenge scales, compared to their mF and mf type colleagues. These results suggest that the masculinity dimension within the female student's ego identity provides the strong basis upon which positive self concept and occupational attitudes can be developed. The relationship between self concept scales and occupational attitude scales was explored more extensively by using the canonical correlation analysis. Three canonical solusions were found statistially significant. The first canonical variate represented the interrelations between competence in self concept (masculinity) and self-actualization in occupation (high job challenge and occupational readiness). The second variate reflected close relationship between harmoniousness in self concept and human relations orientation in occupation. The third variate indicated an association between feminine self concept and orientation to the working conditions in one's occupational life. Additional analyses were attempted to further examine relationships between self concept and occupational attitude scales. First, on the basis of occupational readiness scores, subjects were divided into three subgroups: high, mid and low readiness groups. It was found that the high readiness group showed also high scores on job challenge orientation, masculinity, potent self-image and self-evaluated competency, followed by the mid and low readiness groups. Second, those who reported strong willingness to continue occupational lives were found to show the same pattern of results as exhibited by the readiness analysis. Third, on the basis of probability that the student would be engaged in the liked occupation, subjects were divided into the high, mid and low probability groups. Comparisons between these groups indicated that among kindergartener students the high probability group tends to show high occupational challenge, positive self-image and high evaluation of one's abilities. However, among non-professional, humanity students results were opposite: the low probability group showed high challenge and support for equality in social roles. In conclusion, results of the present study provided strong supportive evidence to the notion that there exists close relationships between aspects of self concept and occupational attitudes and orientations. However, the pattern of correlations between the two sets of scales were found somewhat different depending upon differences in the field of professionalization from which our female junior college subjects were derived. Therefore, it is suggested that to understand occupational choice processes among female college students, examination of the difference in contents of occupational socialization within the educational institution needs to be done, based on the longitudinal monitoring of choice processes over time.