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Attitudes Of Selected California Community Junior College Faculty Toward Student-Centered And Intellectually-Centered Concepts Of General Education

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Attitudes Of Selected California Community Junior College Faculty Toward Student-Centered And Intellectually-Centered Concepts Of General Education

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Content ATTITUDES OF SELECTED CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY JUNIOR COLLEGE FACULTY TOWARD STUDENT-CENTERED AND INTELLECTUALLY-CENTERED CONCEPTS OF GENERAL EDUCATION by Samuel Thomas Porter A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Education) August 1970 71-7735 PORTER, Samuel Thomas, 1934- ATTITUDES OF SELECTED CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY JUNIOR COLLEGE FACULTY TOWARD STUDENT- CENTERED AND INTELLECTUALLY-CENTERED CONCEPTS OF GENERAL EDUCATION. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1970 Education, higher University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED UNIVERSITY O F SO U T H E R N CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHO O L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by Samuel Thomas Porter under the direction of h.hP..... Dissertation C om mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Gradu ate School, in partial fulfillment of require ments of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y 7 7n^cfo Dean i f D a t e . /.$.?* TABLE OF CONTENTS Page jj iLlST OF TABLES Chapter I. THE PROBLEM Background of the Problem Significance of the Problem Statement of the Problem Hypotheses Assumptions Delimitations Procedures Definitions of Terms Organization of the Remainder of the Study II . A REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE............... 17 The Emergence of the General Education Movement Definitions of General Education Major Studies of General Education General Education in the Junior College Recent Trends in General Education Recent Trends in Junior College General Education Literature on Attitudes and Opinions ii Chapter III. THE PROCEDURE Page 79 Developing the Questionnaire The Pilot Study The Population Sample The Distribution and Return of Questionnaires Tabulation and Treatment of Questionnaires IV. THE FINDINGS OF THE STUDY ........... The General Findings of the Study The Findings of Part I of the Study The Findings of Part II of the Study Summary of the Findings of the Study V. ITEM REVIEW OF THE FINDINGS ......... Part A of the Instrument: The Goals, Purposes, and Objectives of General Education Part B of the Instrument: The Organization and Administration of the General Education Curriculum Part C of the Instrument: The Methods and Practices of General Education Items Receiving No Significant Responses Summary of Significant Responses by Item i I i 90 152 Chapter VI. SUMMARY OF WRITTEN COMMENTS Page 181 Comments on Goals, Purposes, and Objectives: Part A of Instrument Comments on Organization and Administration of the General Education Curriculum: Part B of Instrument Comments on the Methods and Practices of General Education: Part C of Instrument Comments on the Survey Instrument Miscellaneous Comments Summary of Written Comments VII. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . 198 Summary The Findings of the Study Conclusions Evaluation of the Study Recommendations APPENDIXES Appendix A: Significant Differences between Faculty Groups .............. 224 Appendix B: Significant Responses by Individual Faculty Groups .......... 246 Appendix C: Significant Responses by Item . • . 257 : Appendix D: The Instrument...................... 291 I BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................... 2 95 t I Table 1. 2 . 3. 4. 5. 6 . 7. 8. 9. LIST OF TABLES Page j ! Distribution and Return of Questionnaires . . . 88 , Summary of Significant Responses to Hypotheses 1 through 1 4 ...................... 92 Summary of Significant Responses to ! Hypotheses 15 through 2 4 ................... 98 Significant Differences between Deans of j Instruction and Deans of Student | Personnel 224 j I Significant Differences between Chairmen and Instructors in Academic Divisions ........... 22 5 Significant Differences between Chairmen and Instructors in Occupational-Technical Divisions..................................... 226 Significant Differences between Deans of Instruction and Instructors in Occupational- Technical Divisions.......................... 22 7 Significant Differences between Deans of Student Personnel and Instructors in Academic Divisions .......................... 2 30 Significant Differences between Instructors in Academic and Occupational-Technical Divisions..................................... 2 33 v ^Table Page 10. Significant Differences between Instructors of English and Speech........................ 2 35 11. Significant Differences between Instructors of History and Social Science ............... 2 35 12. Significant Differences between Instructors of Mathematics and Physical Science ......... 2 36 13. Significant Differences between Instructors of Business and Vocational-Technical Education..................................... 237 14. Significant Differences between Instructors Teaching at Large and Small Institutions . . 2 39 15. Significant Differences between Instructors Teaching at Urban and Rural Institutions . . 240 16. Significant Differences between Instructors Teaching at New and Old Institutions .... 242 17. Significant Differences between Instructors i in Northern and Southern California .......... 244 18. Significant Responses by Deans of Instruction . 246 19. Significant Responses by Deans of Student Personnel..................................... 247 20. Significant Responses by English Instructors . 248 21. Significant Responses by Speech Instructors . . 249 i 22. Significant Responses by History Instructors . 2 50 I 23. Significant Responses by Social Science | instructors ..................................... 251 i ITable Page 24. Significant Responses by Mathematics Instructors................................... 252 25. Significant Responses by Physical Science Instructors................................... 253 26. Significant Responses by Business Education Instructors................................... 2 54 27. Significant Responses by Vocational-Technical Instructors................................... 255 28. Significant Responses to Item 1 29. Significant Responses to Item 2 30. Significant Responses to Item 3 31. Significant Responses to Item 4 32 . Significant Responses to Item 6 33. Significant Responses to Item 7 34. Significant Responses to Item 8 35. Significant Responses to Item 9 36. Significant Responses to Item 10 ! 37. Significant Responses to Item 11 38. 1 Significant Responses to Item 13 39. I Significant Responses to Item 14 1 40. Significant Responses to Item 15 41 • Significant Responses to Item 16 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 265 266 267 268 269 ;Table CM Significant Responses 43. Significant Responses 44. Significant Responses 45. Significant Responses 46. Significant Responses 47 . Significant Responses 00 Significant Responses 49. Significant Responses 50. Significant Responses 51. Significant Responses 52 . Significant Responses 53. Significant Responses 54. Significant Responses 55 . Significant Responses 56. Significant Responses in Significant Responses 58. Significant Responses 59. Significant Responses 60. Significant Responses i I Page to Item 17 . . . .... 270 to Item 18 . . . .... 270 to Item 19 . . . .... 270 to Item 21 . . . .... 271 to Item 22 . . . .... 272 to Item 24 . . . .... 272 to Item 25 . . . .... 273 to Item 26 . . . .... 274 to Item 27 . . . .... 275 to Item 28 . . . .... 276 to Item 29 . . . .... 277 to Item 31 . . . .... 278 to Item 33 . . . .... 279 to Item 35 . . . .... 280 to Item 37 . . . .... 281 to Item 38 . . . to Item 40 . . . .... 283 to Item 41 . . . .... 284 to Item 42 . . . viii Table Page 61. Significant Responses to Item 43 285 62 . Significant Responses to Item 44 286 63. Significant Responses to Item 45 287 64. Significant Responses to Item 46 287 65. Significant Responses to Item 47 288 66. Significant Responses to Item 48 288 67. Items Receiving No Significant Responses . . . 289 t i ix X CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM Background of the Problem The very rapid expansion of the community junior colleges in California, accompanied by an equally explosive student enrollment, has been one of the remarkable develop ments in higher education since World War II. Among the many factors which have apparently contributed to this growth are the GI Bill for returning veterans, the Report of the President's Commission on Higher Education (1947), the desire of students and parents for low-cost higher educa tion, the desire of local communities for skilled employees, the "Open-Door" admission policies of the community colleges in regard to youth with academic deficiencies, the populari zation of higher education, and the California Master Plan (1960). The impact of these forces has been to bring to the California community junior colleges thousands of youth, often with serious academic deficiencies and poorly defined 1 educational goals. The community colleges are expected to prepare many of these for transfer to other institutions, many others for immediate occupational employment, and all of these for a rich and satisfying personal, family and vocational life. The California community colleges have subsequently developed broad programs in occupational education, transfer education, general education, adult education, and counsel ing and guidance. General education might be described as that part of the student's program of education that seeks to maximize his emotional, social, and intellectual growth (Johnson, 1952* Morse, 1964)— an emphasis, however, which is not universally accepted (Hutchins, 1936; Harvard Committee, 1945; and Bell, 1966). The existence of wide disagreement over the purposes of general education has been cited as indicative of a high degree of philosophical confusion (Russell, 1939) . The discrepancies in the orientation of educators toward the purposes, objectives, organization, and practices of general education reflect a basic dichotomy between "student-centered" and "intellectually-centered" concepts of education. Taylor (1952) noted three basic groupings, which he described as "rationalism," "neo-humanism," and "functionalism," but Corey (1952) reported that few actual differences separated the first two. He found that if the learning theories— on which programs of general education were constructed— were compared, only two groupings would exist. He called these "student-centered" and "content- centered." in recent years, however, increased emphasis has been placed on the methodology of a discipline (Bell, 1966) and interdisciplinary "cores" (Tussman, 1969), as a result of which the phrase "intellectually-centered" more accurately describes the opposite of "student-centered." The concepts of "student-centered" and "intellec tually-centered" represent two different approaches to edu cation. The former is broadly concerned with the "whole person"— his needs and his behavior; while the latter remains primarily concerned with the organization, struc ture, and content of knowledge. The paradox is that these concepts should be complementary, that the intellectual growth of the student should be enhanced by emotional happi ness and well-being, and that a sense of personal worth, dignity, and accomplishment should develop as a result of satisfying intellectual growth. The student-centered edu cator is concerned with the intellectual growth of the stu dent but does not stress it to the exclusion of other areas 4 of growth, while the intellectually-centered educator views higher education as little more than an instrument for developing the intellect. In the California community colleges, the instruc tional staff is primarily responsible for incorporating the goals and objectives of general education into their courses (Johnson, 1952). Few colleges have well-planned curriculums of general education in which the goals are approached on a truly institutional basis (Reynolds, 1946). The chief means of satisfying the institution's own general education requirements have been through introductory survey courses and an occasional course such as "Marriage and Family." Most of the courses described in the college catalogues as meeting general education requirements are not more than barely discernible from intellectually-centered courses designed for department majors. Fitzgerald (1964) reported that junior college instructors teaching in transfer areas have very little sympathy for other institutional functions. Even among those faculty who do admit the importance of gen eral education, the demands of teaching a subject (rather than students) permit precious little time to be spent pur suing general education objectives. This lack of awareness is even more dangerous at the community college level with students of poor academic ability and low motivation levels than at the four-year college. Many students who need the most help and encouragement receive the least because great segments of the community college faculty seem to view gen eral education as glorified "babysitting." The community junior colleges of California exhibit many characteristics uniquely their own. Cross (1968) found that their students possess on the whole much less ability than the students at four-year institutions, but that fully one-third possess as much ability. She reported that the range of interests as well as ability was greater in the community college. A greater percentage of the two-year college students came from the lower socioeconomic strata where cultural and intellectual pursuits had not been encouraged. She also reported that a great percentage of junior college students were vocationally oriented and viewed the institution as primarily a vehicle for occupa tional placement. The task of the community college is difficult. It must prepare youth for transfer to four-year institutions while at the same time preparing many others for employment. As the school acts to develop marketable skills, it must also conclude the student's formal education for icitizenship, family life, vocational adjustment, and worthy use of leisure time. Unfortunately, because of the brevity j ! of the junior college program, this last opportunity to i guide the emotional and social growth of the student is overj almost as soon as it begins. Many leaders of the junior college movement (Bogue, j 1950; Johnson, 1952; Medsker, 1960; and Thornton, 1966) havej s seen the solution to this problem in the development of a i broad and all-encompassing program of general education I centered on the needs of students. Morse (1964) noted that i this type of program subscribes to a psychological approach,! and Rice (1964) stressed that it is committed to the ideal : ■ t of the whole person. Mayhew (1960a) emphasized that it should educate for the effective personal adjustment of the i ! student. The predilection of the faculty toward different concepts and practices of general education will strongly affect the type of total program the community junior col lege develops. The nature of the internal contradictions and conflicting views lodged within the junior college must first be recognized before a viable and relevant program of general education can be constructed. 7 Significance of the Problem The existence of widespread student unrest attests to the actuality of great social and economic injustices in the United States. The belief held by masses of youth that their education is not only irrelevant but also insensitive to these injustices may imply that education has been fail ing its essential tasks for some time. Many institutions are now restudying their programs of general education. Stanford University's Committee for the Study of Education (1968) reported that general education is dead or now dying. The report blamed the faculty member who prefers to teach what he desires rather than what a general education commit tee prescribes. Brown and Mayhew (1965) described the gen eral education movement as "a serious attempt that failed" (p. 105) and stated among the reasons for this failure the preference of faculty for specialization. Others (Axelrod, Freedman, Hatch, Katz, and Sanford, 1969) agree. The significance of this problem is that faculty are seemingly uninterested in general education and increasingly unwilling to participate in various student-centered pro grams at the very time when the ideal of general education appears necessary for the well-being of society. This study 8 seeks to determine whether selected groups of California community college faculty are oriented toward student- centered or intellectually-centered concepts of general edu cation as totally different programs will emerge from the implementation of these dichotomous concepts. If general education is to be successful and relevant to the students, it must be flexible and adjustive; student-centered educa tion is more likely to meet these criteria than intellec tually-centered education. Statement of the Problem The problem of this study is to determine the predi lection of community junior college faculty toward broad concepts of general education; to determine whether selected faculty are oriented toward student-centered or intellec tually-centered concepts of education; and to determine the degree to which administrators and faculty differ between and among themselves on (1) the purposes, goals, and objec tives of general education, (2) the development and organi zation of the general education curriculum, and (3) the methods and practices of general education. The study will seek to recommend specific policies and courses of action 9 designed to vitalize the community junior college programs of general education. Hypotheses Part I of this study (Hypotheses 1-14) attempts to determine whether differences exist between and among admin istrators and instructors in their orientation toward (1) the goals, purposes, and objectives of general educa tion, (2) the development and organization of the general education curriculum, and (3) the methods and practices of general education. A Null hypothesis is that there is no significant difference in response between the means of the following groups: 1. Deans of instruction and deans of student personnel. 2. Chairmen of academic divisions and instructors teaching in academic divisions. 3. Chairmen of occupational-technical divisions and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions. 4. Deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions. 5. Deans of student personnel and instructors teaching in academic divisions. 6. Instructors in academic divisions and instructors in occupational-technical divisions. 7. Instructors of English and instructors of speech. 8. Instructors of history and instructors of social science. 9. Instructors of mathematics and instructors of physical science. 10. Instructors of business education and instruc tors of vocational-technical education. 11. Instructors teaching in large institutions and instructors teaching in small institutions. 12. Instructors teach in urban institutions and instructors teaching in rural institutions. 13. Instructors teaching in new institutions and instructors teaching in old institutions. 14. Instructors teaching in Northern California and instructors teaching in Southern California. 11 ! Part II of this study (Hypotheses 15-24) seeks to i , determine whether different school populations are oriented i I toward either student-centered or intellectually-centered i i concepts of general education. A Null hypothesis is that j none of the following populations is oriented toward either j student-centered or intellectually-centered concepts of gen-j eral education: i I I I 15 . Deans of instruction I 16. Deans of student personnel i I 17. English instructors j 18. Speech instructors ! i I 19. History instructors j I 20. Social science instructors 21. Mathematics instructors 22. Physical science instructors 23. Business instructors I 24. Vocational-technical educator instructors Assumptions The study was based on the following assumptions; i I 1. General education is a day-by-day on-going j process in all educational institutions regard- ' less of the intention of the institution. 12 2. Most junior colleges attempt to organize the general education experiences of their students in such a way as to provide greater— rather than lesser— value and meaning for these students than if they were left unorganized. 3. The orientation of educators toward student- centered and intellectually-centered concepts of general education reflects a basic dichotomy in the approach of educators to education. 4. The predilection of community junior college faculty toward student-centered and intellec tually-centered concepts of general education can be determined by means of a carefully pre pared questionnaire. Delimitations The population sample in this study was limited to; 1. Full-time administrators and instructors in the community junior colleges of California. 2. The following administrators: Deans of instruc tion and deans of student personnel. 3. Two instructors and the division chairman in each of the following areas; Language arts, 13 social science, mathematics and physical science, business education, and vocational- technical education. Procedures A survey questionnaire was developed to reflect the basic dichotomy in orientation toward general education and administered to selected faculty in eighty-five Californic community junior colleges. Approximately 1250 question naires were distributed. The returns were keypunched for analysis by an IBM 1130 computer. The details of the proce dure followed in the development, administration, and tabu lation of the survey instrument are described in Chapter IV. Definitions of Terms The guidelines for definition of terms used in this study were established by Fitzgerald (1964) so that later students of faculty views might have some basis for deter mining shifts in perspectives over a period of time. The following definitions were used. Large junior college.— A junior college with 2500 or more average daily attendance. 14 Small unior college.— A junior college with 2499 or less average daily attendance. New junior college.— A junior college established on or after July 1, 1960. Old junior college.— A junior college established before July 1, 1960. Rural junior college.— A junior college located so that no city with a population of 50,000 or more has its city limits within a twenty-five mile radius of the college. Urban junior college.--A junior college located so that a city with a population of 50,000 or more has its city limits within a twenty-five mile radius of the college. Academic divisions and courses.--Those courses and programs which emphasize the acquisition of knowledge or the development of intellectual skills. Technical-vocational education.— Those courses, divisions, or programs which are considered by the junior college as preparation for occupational competency. 15 Occupational-technical divisions and courses.— Those divisions or courses which prepare students for occupational competency, an inclusive category including technical educa tion, vocational education, and business education. Northern California junior college.— Those junior colleges which are members of the California Junior College Association Areas V, VI, VII, and VIII. Southern California junior college.— Those junior colleges which are members of the California Junior College Association Areas I, II, III, IV, and IX. Significant differences.— A difference will be sig nificant when a Null hypothesis that the difference is due to chance only can be rejected at the 5 percent level of confidence, i.e., when the chances are 95 in 100 that the difference is a real one and not the result of sampling pro cedures . Organization of the Remainder of the Study Following Chapter I, Chapter II is a summary and review of related literature. Chapter III outlines the pro cedures used in this study. Chapter IV presents the find ings for Hypotheses 1-24, and Chapter V presents the 16 significant responses (findings) for each item on the ques tionnaire so as to enable the reader to view the findings from a different perspective. Chapter VI summarizes the written comments on the returned questionnaires. Chapter VII reports the summary, conclusions, and recommendations of the study. CHAPTER II A REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Virtually limitless literature exists on aspects of general education, and most of it is relevant to this study. Much of it, however, is expository in nature and better reflects the views, attitudes, and opinions of its authors than it reports pertinent research on the subject. The more important research with implications for general education is "borrowed" from studies of learning theory, personality development, and the impact of socioeconomic differences on motivation and learning. To a very great degree, the lit erature of general education embodies the whole field of education. This review of the literature related to general education will subsequently be limited to reporting the major developments in the evolution of general education— the emergence of the general education movement, the defini tions of general education, major studies of general 17 18 education, general education in the junior colleges, and recent trends in general education. The final section of this review of the literature will report studies related to the construction and interpretation of instruments designed to measure attitudes and opinions. The Emergence of the General Education Movement The term "general education" has apparently been in use for many years to distinguish between the "functions of a broad liberal education and the more specialized functions of professional and vocational education" (Thomas, 1962, p. 11). It has also apparently been used interchangeably with such terms as "liberal studies," "general studies,” and "college work" (Thomas, 1962). Its purpose was origi nally the same as that of liberal education, which was to free men from the narrow provincialism that surrounded them in their youth and adolescence. Although the goal of liberal education was the pur pose of the early American colleges, it was not the purpose of the German university. The idea of separating "college work" from "university work" was popularized by early lead ers of the university movement prior to the turn of the twentieth century. Thomas (1962, pp. 40-41) reports that 19 Henry Tappan made such a distinction in 1851 and that William Rainey Harper pointedly distinguished between col lege and "real university work" some forty years later. For these men and their disciples, the college was the center of the liberal studies or general education, while the univer sity was intended to be the center of advanced research or specialization. Liberal education was a child of the Enlightenment, which postulated the belief that man is a rational being who lacked not the intelligence but the knowledge to act ration ally. The educational program founded on this assumption sought to bring to the student the best that man had known in the form of the accumulated wisdom and experience of the past— of the good and bad, of right and wrong, and of the pleasing and unpleasing. According to Jones (1966), such education was based on the knowledge of the older world and sought to explore the explanation of all things in their origin. Morse (1964, pp. 8-10) summarized the essential elements of liberal education as (1) concerned with a body of subject matter drawn largely from the cultural heritage of the Western world, (2) possessed of a content that is relatively fixed and generally divorced from pragmatic |intent, and (3) concerned with little other than the intel- ; lectual development of the student. Many writers (Hutchins, 1936; Cole, 1940; Thomas, i i 1962) agree that the basic unity of liberal education con- j sisted chiefly of promoting the natural relationship between! imparting the cultural heritage and stimulating the intel lectual development of the student. This unity, however, broke down under the weight of specialization in the early decades of the twentieth century. The university, which had been separated from the college so as to free it from the restrictions of general studies, now fostered a type of pre university specialization that reached back into the col- jlege. Professors, searching for eager young disciples and i I (determined to better prepare them for the rigors ahead, I i (established intensive departmental patterns of prerequi- I sites. After summarizing this development, Eurich (1939) I concluded that university preparation had become the major work of the colleges. Many educators, including some affil iated basically with the junior college (Harbeson, 1939), japplauded this development as keeping higher education in i ! tune with the needs of modern technology. 1 ( ■ With the advent of great social, economic, and I political pressures generated by rapid industrialization, 21 World War I, the Great Depression, and the spread of totali tarianism, educators looked anew at the trend toward spe cialization and the disappearance of the old "unity" that gave the student a sense of place in the scheme of things (Ehrhardt, 1950) . Hutchins (1936) sought to recapture the old unity by revitalizing liberal education by little more than renaming it "general education." Others, such as John Dewey (1938), had long believed liberal education to have failed in its basic purpose. As early as the turn of the century, Dewey (1902) stated that the basic educational problem was man's insistence of maintaining his traditional aims and values in the face of revolutionary technology. Taylor (1952, p. 24) reported the impact of Dewey's ideas on education and indirectly on general education: Dewey's concepts of experience, his ideas concerning growth, maturity, and learning, his emphasis on the relation of life to learning, the school to society, and education to democracy, have all had a signifi cant effect in educational reform. Taylor (1952, pp. 24-25, 35-38) noted that with the excep tion of a few experimental institutions, the colleges of liberal arts were "more influenced by the classical human ists and rationalists than by Dewey's philosophy" but that his views did become the heart of the instrumentalist or student-centered approach to general education. Although the term "general education" had been rather loosely substituted for "liberal education" for many decades, the "general education movement" seems to have been born in the chaotic 1930's. Rattigan (1952, pp. 31-40) in dicated that the "movement" resulted from widespread dissat isfaction with over-specialization, the natural increase in the student population, the accelerated percentage of stu dents seeking higher education, the desire of educators to accomodate these youths, and the impact of gestalt psychol ogy. The popularization of general education was noted by Robertson (1967, p. 11), who reported that the Thirty-First Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. published in 1932 under the title, Changes and Experiments in Liberal Arts Education, made only occasional references to general education; eight years later, however, the same society published its Thirty-Eighth Yearbook under the title General Education in the American College. MacLean (1939) reported in that yearbook that such small experimental institutions as Antioch, Bennington, and Sarah Lawrence, which had developed unique programs of general education, had been joined by such giants in American education as the 23 University of Wisconsin, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Chicago. rf the driving force behind the general education movement was the search for a new unity to supplant the old, the result was often chaotic as various institutions adjusted their curriculums in different ways. Reporting on a study of the concept of general education held by educators at thirty-five institutions, Russell (1939, p. 183) con cluded that "we can hardly avoid the conclusion that confu sion pervades the minds of many of those who discuss the subject." Definitions of General Education The various definitions of general education reflect the confusion that exists over the meaning of general educa tion. Although the focus of different writers varies even within broadly designated categories, certain major points of emphasis do seem to exist. These are (1) general educa tion as nonspecialized and nonvocational education, (2) general education as the "common denominator," (3) gen eral education as personal adjustment, (4) general education as the development of the whole person or total personality, (5) general education as the means for developing 24 responsible citizenship, and (6) general education as the development of the intellectual processes. That many defi nitions of descriptions of general education contain several emphases underscores the multiple purposes that educators have assigned to general education and serves in part to explain both the vitality of the general education movement and the current concern over its present status in the junior colleges. General education as nonspecialized and nonvocational education McGrath (1946, p. 8) stated conclusively the view of those who felt that general education should attempt to recover the sense of basic unity lost by the inroads of spe cialization on liberal education by describing general edu cation as a reaction against specialism and vocationalism; an effort to integrate the subject matter of related disciplines; an increased prescription of representa tive subject matter; an attempt to assist the student in seeing the relationship between learning and life and in using his knowledge and skills in daily living McConnell (1945, p. 6) had already stated the same concept: "'General education' refers to those phases of non specialized and non-vocational education which should 25 provide the common basis for normal human living in a free society." Later, the President's Commission on Higher Education (1947, p. 49) used almost the same terminology: "General education is the term that has come to be accepted for those phases of non-specialized and non-vocational learning which should be the common experience of all edu cated men and women." General education as the "common denominator" The definitions cited above reveal that commonality is also an important component for those who believe that general education is nonspecialized and nonvocational educa tion. McGrath (1948, pp. 8-9) further states that general education, as we conceive it, is that which prepares the young for the common life of their time and their kind. It includes the fund of knowledge and beliefs and the habits of language and thought which characterize and give stability to a partic ular social group. It is the unifying element of a culture. A report of the New York regents (1938, pp. 30-31) is even more precise: . . . a broad general education which will give to all alike at least the same minimum essential tools of inter-communication and thinking, the same mini mum up-to-date scientific acquaintance with the world in which we live, both natural and social, an 26 appreciation of the culture and standards of our civilization, the beginnings of the ability to work well with others, a common understanding and belief in the democratic process, and the desire to pre serve and defend self-government. In addition to this, students need some understanding of their bodies and minds, and the opportunity to develop their individual capacities, interests, and possi bilities for growth. The first need is common to all; its fulfillment is essential to society. The second is different with each, but its satisfaction is likewise necessary to the growth and enrichment not only of the individual but also of society. General education as personal adjustment While the emphasis in general education on personal adjustment can be seen in several of the definitions cited in this section, few writers have proclaimed this to be the sole purpose of general education. The need for personal adjustment, however, was one of the concerns that contrib uted to the establishment of the General College at the University of Minnesota. MacLean (1934, p. 120) reported: Our concept of general education is, then, one of a training process designed to make people at home in their complex modern world rather than to give them an analytical, minute, and complete picture of the intricacies of one phase of it; to give them the chance to make themselves supple and adaptable to change rather than rigidly prepared for a single occupation . . . 27 Troyer and Pace (1944, p. 79) were somewhat more direct: General education is defined as a program of experi ence which enables the student to gain a broad per spective on individual and social problems so that he approaches with clear understanding and insight his responsibilities as a worker, a future parent, citizen, and human being. It is concerned with stu dents' personal, social, and emotional adjustments, attitudes, and appreciations, just as much as with their acquisition of knowledge, or the truth. General education as the development of the whole person or personality Cowley (1938, p. 476) emphasized that the school should do much more than limit its concern to the training of the intellect: . . . the purpose of the college is the training of the whole student, not of his mind alone. . . . Intelligence is not enough because thinking is only part of living; because students come to college not only fro the training of their minds but also for the enrichment of their lives as people; because . . . they seek to know themselves; because such knowledge is emotional and social and spiritual as well as intellectual; because not only the student's mind comes to college but also his body . . . Baker (1952, p. 55) equated this type of education with the educational ideal of the ancient Greeks: General education represents a great democratic educational endeavor to raise every person to that state of practical, intellectual, and emotional understanding to which the ancient Greeks . . . attempted to raise only their upper class. 28 More recently, Morse (1964, p. 8) stated that general educa tion "is more concerned with the development of the individ ual on a broader scale— intellectual, emotional, and per sonal development ..." General education as the development of the intellectual processes The emphasis on developing the intellect has received strong support from many prominent American educators. Hutchins (1936, pp. 62-63), one of the foremost spokesmen for this type of general education, has stated: The scheme that I advance is based on the notion that general education is education for everybody, whether he goes on to the university or not. It will be useful if he never goes there. I will admit that it will not be useful to him outside the university in the popular sense of utility. It may not assist him to make money or get ahead. It may not in any obvious fashion adjust him to his environment or fit him for the contemporary scene. It will, how ever, have a deeper, wider utility; it will cultivate the intellectual virtues. In short the intellectual virtues are habits resulting from the training of the intellectual po\ ers. An intellect properly disciplined, an intel lect properly habituated is an intellect able to operate well in all fields. In stressing that "general education . . . must consciously aim at these abilities: at effective thinking, communication, the making of relevant judgments, and the 29 discrimination of values," the Harvard Committee (1945, p. 73) established the framework for the development of an intellectually-centered program of general education. The two-year program initiated by Tussman (1969) at Berkeley is based on essentially the same goals as outlined by the Harvard Committee. Bell (1966) stressed that it was not what one knows but how one knows it that is important. He stated that the college must teach the basic modes of conceptualization, explanation, and verification of knowledge. Bell (1966, p. 157) stated this approach to general education rather explicitly: In fact, I do not think that the distinction between general education and specialism really holds. One must embody and exemplify general education through disciplines; and one must extend the context of specialism so that the ground of knowledge is ex plicit. The common bond of the two is the emphasis on conceptual inquiry. To this extent, in the recon ciliation of liberal education and specialism, train ing cannot deal with techniques in the narrow sense, but with the foundations of knowledge itself; i.e., how a particular discipline establishes its concepts; how these concepts seen as fluid inquiry, need to be revised to meet new problems; how one establishes the criteria of choice for one, rather than another, alternative pattern of inquiry. In effect, general education is education in the conduct and strategy of inquiry itself. Many others (Cole, 1940; McGrath, 1946) believe that the development of the intellectual processes is the 30 major but not necessarily the total purpose of general edu cation. McGrath (1946, p. 158) wrote: ! ; It must be admitted that general education should | provide essential knowledge about the physical j world, about human beings and other animal life which j inherit the globe, and about the methodology employed in the various disciplines to extend this knowledge. I But it should also cultivate in students the intellec- I tual processes of logical reasoning, inference, gener alization, and reflective thinking. It must also I assist students in deriving a set of ethical prin ciples for themselves which will give direction to their lives and provide the basis for a moral evalua- I tion of their behavior and that of their contempo raries . General education as the means for developing responsible citizenship The Harvard Committee (1945) repeatedly stressed the role of general education in developing citizenship, even reflecting this concern in the title of its report, General Education in a Free Society. The report stated (pp. 5 3-54, 146) : For the civilized man is a citizen of the entire ; universe; he has overcome provincialism, he is objec- i tive, and is a "spectator of all time and all exis- | tence." Surely these two are the very aims of ; democracy itself. In order to discharge his duties as a citizen adequately, a person must somehow be able to grasp the complexities of life as a whole . . . General education is especially required in a democracy where the public elects its leaders and officials; 31 I | the ordinary citizen must be discerning enough so ! that he will not be deceived by appearances. To the belief in man's dignity must be added the J recognition of his duty to fellow men. Dignity does not rest on any man as a being separate from all other beings, which he in any case cannot be, but springs from his common humanity and exists posi tively as he makes the common good his own. i j Johnson (1952, p. 22) listed first among his goals of general education the development of the responsibilities jof democratic citizenship. He had stated previously (p. 16) that the importance of general education was evidenced by ("the lessons of history, the complexities of day-to-day liv ing, the demands of democracy ..." Other elements within definitions of general education Rattigan (1952) reported several other elements to be occasionally found in various definitions of general edu cation. He stated that these were (1) the concept of gen- i jeral education as fulfilling the life-needs of students; (2) the concept of general education developing a sense of personal discipline within students; and (3) the concept of general education continuing throughout life. Several writ ers (Rattigan, 1952; Harvard Committee, 1945) have reacted negatively to the proposal that general education was 32 intended to be "universal" education in the sense that it should be a standardized pattern of education. i Summary i i The points of emphasis in the various definitions j jreflect considerable disagreement over the essential nature land purposes of general education. This disagreement itself reflects a deeper disagreement over the theory of learning | and the basic objectives of education. The basic dichotomy that appears in these definitions is between student- centered and intellectually-centered approaches to general education . The definitions that emphasize personal adjust ment and the development of the whole person can easily be classified as student-centered, and the definitions that state that general education is essentially a process of developing the intellectual powers of the student is clearly intellectually-centered. The three categories that appear to be "gray"— general education as nonspecialized and nonvo cational education, as the "common denominator," and as the means for developing responsible citizenship— are not so "gray" if the primary emphasis is or is not on the develop ment of the intellectual processes. These definitions indi vidually can be classified as either student-centered or 33 intellectually-centered by means of content analysis. This summary concludes that a basic dichotomy does exist among jeducators in their approach to general education. I Major Studies of General Education During the past forty years, a number of significant ! istudies of general education have been published. These I Istudies and their points of emphasis are presented chrono- i logically in this section. ; The Institute for Administrative Officers of Higher Education (1934) published its report under the title of General Education: Its Nature, Scope and Essential Ele ments . The study reported the failure of a conference to develop a new definition of general education but is, how ever, rich in information reflecting early perspectives of the topic. Many of the basic ideas that have dominated the ’ area of general education for the past four decades were debated extensively at that conference. The National Society for the Study of Education (1939) devoted its Thirty-Eighth Yearbook, Part II, General Education in the American College, to a review of the status |of general education at the end of the 1930‘s. Eurich 34 (p. 12) summarized general education as: i (1) broad— concerning itself with the widest possible range of basic human activities, with due regard for their historical development and for ! their essential interrelationship; (2) scholarly— j guiding the student to the discovery of the best i that is currently known and thought concerning the various problems to which his attention is turned; (3) dynamic— stressing the ways in which social changes and the discovery of new knowledge continu ously invalidate established views and lead to new ; and more approximately correct conclusions; I (4) democratic--accepting the inevitability of dif ferences of opinion and employing the methods of discussion and persuasion in dealing with such dif ferences; (5) systematic— constantly emphasizing the | methods by which sound conclusions are reached and j desired ends attained; and (6) generalized— develop- | ing in the student a real grasp of the most widely i ramifying generalized insights— intellectual, ethical, and esthetic. Prescott (pp. 36-40) describes the intellectual functions of general education as (1) supplying youth with the experi ences through which they can learn those facts that should have significance in determining their behavior; (2) promot- I ing the organization of the "memory residues" of their expe diences into valid generalizations, operational concepts, [attitudes, and standards of value; (3) aiding the student in i [accurately symbolizing these experiences; (4) working toward better mental organization so that symbolizations will be valid in reality; and (5) developing a sense of social obli gations and assisting youth in "assimilating these 35 experiences to the point where they will agree upon the i goals of social life and upon the processes by which these goals may be reached." ! MacLean (pp. 150-152) suggests that the curriculum at General College, University of Minnesota, might be I broadly applicable to other institutions wrestling with the difficulty of creating programs of general education. He reports the curriculum to be organized around the following j courses: Personal Life Orientation, Home and Family Life I Orientation, General Vocational Orientation, and Social and Civic Orientation. Bigelow (pp. 267-268) reports the fol lowing principles to be the basis of the program of general education at Central State Teachers College, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan: 1. We believe in a student-centered program rather than in a subject-matter program, in the psycho- j logical rather than in the logical approach; i.e., in the discovery of interests as goals in a search for thought materials and for activity procedures. 2. We believe that education should emphasize growth as its ultimate goal, rather than subject- matter acquirement— which acceptance entails the necessity of opening up large opportunity for self-direction in choice of interests and in selection of modes of procedure in the search for knowledge and in the solution of problems. r 36 3. 4. 5 . through the types of learning and teaching situations. After asking the question, "What are the situations and problems with which the individual must deal in the course of his living in a democratic society?" he described these situations to be (1) personal contacts, (2) the economic ; system, (3) the governmental system, (4) the educational 'system, (5) health, (6) recreation, and (7) newer concep tions of man. He next listed the traits, characteristics, and capabilities an individual must possess in order to be sadequate within each of the posed situations. He found these to be (1) careful and critical thinking, (2) signifi cant interests, (3) insights, attitudes, and appreciations, We believe in the selection of larger centers of interest for classroom activity, those which are comparable with life situations, and which thus demand the crossing of departmental lines . . . We believe that a democratic form of social cul ture demands a problem-solving type of mind, capable of meeting the ever-varying demands of a modern society, rather than the receptive type of mind which the traditional program has emphasized We believe that a college student is capable of self-appraisal and self-guidance, and that he should be trained to direct his development toward the goal of his own highest potentiali ties as a person. Only as he learns to direct his own growth can he learn the techniques of guiding others in their development. Powers (pp. 32 5-334) approached general education 37 (4) values and standards, (5) emotional control, (6) crea tive activities, and (7) a philosophy of life. ; Bigelow and MacLean (pp. 361-367) summarized the i idominant trends in general education at that time as empha sizing (1) a functional approach, (2) the development of the whole organism, (3) personal growth, (4) adjustment to social change, and (5) the ideal of integration. The Harvard Committee (1945) stressed the importance of a common intellectual and cultural experience. It stated (pp. 40-41) that general education must rest on some over ’ logic, some strong, not easily broken frame within which both college and school may ful fill their at once diversifying and uniting tasks. The logic must be wide enough to embrace the actual richness and variegation of modern life— a richness partly, if not wholly, reflected in the complexity of our present educational system. It must also be strong enough to give goal and direction to this system— something much less clear at present. It is evidently to be looked for in the character of American society, a society not wholly of the new ■ world alone since it came from the old, not wholly ! given to innovation since it acknowledges certain j fixed beliefs, not even wholly a law unto itself since there are principles above the state. This logic must further embody certain intangibles of the American spirit, in particular, perhaps, the ideal of cooperation on the level of action irrespective of agreement on uItimates--which is to say, belief in the worth and meaning of the human spirit, how ever one may understand it. Such a belief rests on that hard but very great thing, tolerance not from absence of standards but through possession of them. 38 This approach to general education was seen to require certain broadly prescribed areas of study for all students. jThe report stated (pp. 2 05-2 30) that students should concen trate on great texts of literature in the humanities, on Western thought and institutions in the social sciences, and on basic principles in science and mathematics; within each of these areas students would have an opportunity to select from alternative courses designed to fulfill the basic pur poses of the institution's program of general education. The President's Commission on Higher Education (1947, pp. 47-65) listed the goals of general education as enabling the student to (1) deepen his sense of personal integrity, (2) participate in civic affairs as an active and informed citizen, (3) accept personal responsibility for fostering international understanding, (4) understand our natural environment and the effect of science on human wel fare, (5) grasp and express ideas effectively, (6) attain a satisfactory emotional and social adjustment, (7) safeguard personal and community health, (8) appreciate cultural activities as a means to richer living, (9) prepare intelli gently for a satisfying family life, (10) discover an appro priate and satisfying life work, and (11) develop the abil ity to think critically and constructively. I 39 I { The National Society for the Study of Education (1952) published its Fifty-First Yearbook, Part I, under the title, General Education. It reported the philosophi cal, psychological, and social basis for an instrumentalist j jor student-centered approach to general education. Taylor I (pp. 35-38) carefully distinguished between the rationalist, neo-humanist, and instrumentalist approaches and pointed [throughout to the weaknesses of the first two. Of the .latter, he wrote: The instrumentalist philosophy of education puts its I chief emphasis on the uses of knowledge. The instru- | mentalist theory of truth works outward from individ- j ual experience to concepts and facts which are con- ! tinuously reaffirmed or denied by subsequent experi- I ence. . . . For the instrumentalist, there are no absolute truths or values. There are, instead, vary ing degrees of certainty and conviction, based on the experience of the human race with particular truths and particular values . . . In place of absolute j standards of moral and intellectual conduct, the S instrumentalist puts standards which are learned through experience to be adequate when tested con stantly by individuals who make moral and intellec tual decisions . . . The moral element in the instru- : mentalist philosophy is the insistence upon the value of free spontaneous growth . . . In terms of general education in American society, the instrumentalist I philosophy sets up two criteria for planning a cur- , riculum, (a) what kind of knowledge and experience can contribute to a more abundant personal life, and (b) what kind of knowledge and experience can con- | tribute to a stronger and freer social order. Corey (pp. 46-70) stated that there was little actual difference between the psychological basis of 40 (rationalism and neo-humanism and concluded that these two were on the opposite end of the spectrum from the psycholog ical basis of instrumentalism. Among the differences he I jreported were (1) instrumentalists do not make any sharp I jdistinction between content and method, (2) instrumentalists [ believe that instruction is effective only if it reaches the student in terms significant to his own life, and (3) in strumentalists refute any sharp distinction between intel lectual and emotional experience. I | Havighurst (pp. 71-96) believed that the basic pur poses of general education were to (1) develop critical intelligence, (2) develop and improve moral character, (3) develop and improve citizenship, (4) create intellectual unity and communion of minds among as large a population as possible, and (5) to equalize opportunity for individual economic and social improvement. ■ Other chapters reported areas of specific concern to i I jthe student-centered educator. These areas, broadly, related to problems of instruction, the nature of the extra curricular program, the purpose of personnel work, and the evaluation of programs of general education. Morse (p. 371) concluded that the dominant unity to be found in the 41 various approaches to general education was purpose, which I I he described as i j a dedication to educate young men and women to understand, uphold and improve the freedom which is their heritage and which . . . imbues them with the zeal to become informed, intelligently critical, and active citizens in a free society. After conducting a workshop on general education in the California junior colleges, Johnson (1952, p. 20) ireported the consensus of the participants on the defini- i tion of general education: "... that part of education which is concerned with the common knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed by each individual to be effective as a person, a member of a family, a worker, and a citizen." The workshop (pp. 2 0-21) developed six principles for general education: (1) General education must be based on the charac teristics of students and society. (2) All areas of experience, at home and in the community, as well as in the college, interact to affect the student's growth. (3) The junior college will not complete the student's general education; rather it will aim to equip and encourage him to pursue the goals of general education throughout his life. (4) Students . . . differ greatly in experiences, needs, capaci ties, interests, and aspirations. (5) The general education program must promote the growth and devel opment of each individual on the basis of his partic ular abilities, interests, and other characteristics. (6) The final test of a program of general education is changed student behavior, motivated by the stu dent's desire to improve himself and society. 42 Using these principles as their guidelines, the workshop proceeded to draft the following statement of goals (pp. 21-22): Students in California Public Junior Colleges differ greatly in experiences, needs, capacities, aspira tions, and interests. The general education program aims to help each student increase his competence in 1. Exercising the privileges and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. 2. Developing a set of sound moral and spiritual values by which he guides his life. 3. Expressing his thoughts clearly in speaking and writing and in reading and listening with understanding. 4. Using the basic mathematical and mechanical skills necessary in everyday life. 5. Using methods of critical thinking for the solution of problems and for the discrimination among values. 6. Understanding his cultural heritage so that he may gain a perspective of his time and place in the world. 7. Understanding his interaction with his biologi cal and physical environment so that he may better adjust to and improve that environment. 8. Maintaining good mental and physical health for himself, his family and his community. 9. Developing a balanced personal and social adjustment. 10. Sharing in the development of a satisfactory home and family life. 11. Taking part in some form of satisfying creative activity and in appreciating the creative activities of others. 43 12. Achieving a satisfactory vocational adjust ment . I i These goals of general education which had been I developed at the workshop were used by Johnson as the basis for evaluating the program of general education in the California junior colleges. The full report, appropriately titled General Education in Action, noted the successes and occasional failures of the junior colleges' attempt to con- i jstruct adequate programs of general education. Although jjohnson seemed guardedly optimistic about the total program in California, he did conclude (p. 395) rather ringingly that the program "is_ general education in action!" i j Dressel and Mayhew (1954) directed a study sponsored by the American Council on Education and published as General Education; Explorations in Evaluation. The stated purpose of the study was to determine whether any one par ticular approach to general education was demonstrably supe rior to any other approach. Different committees were jestablished to investigate the impact of content orienta- I i tion, intellectual orientation, and student orientation in various areas of concern to general education. The result was a failure in that none of the committees chose to con cern themselves with the topic under investigation. Dressel and Mayhew, however, did find that one common theme was I uppermost in the thinking of each of the committees— j | critical thinking. In 1960, the William C. Brown Company published a new series on general education under the direction of Earl J . McGrath. Each of the seven books contained a number of Assays exploring the general education practices of differ- I ent institutions. The series is valuable for its inclusive ness and depth of reporting. The books and their editors are as follows: Curriculum Building in General Education (Carlin and Blackman, 1960), The Larger Learning (Carpenter, 1960), The Humanities in General Education (Fischer, 1960), Iscience in General Education (Haun, 1960), Social Science i |in General Education (Mayhew, 1960c), General Education for I Personal Maturity (Morse and Dressel, 1960), and Communica- i tion in General Education (Shoemaker and Forsdale, 1960). Also in the same year, Mayhew (1960b) edited General I jEducation: An Account and Appraisal, a collection of essays I i !by eight educators who had been active in the general educa tion movement. I I Thomas (1962) published a concise overview of the historical development of general education under the title of The Search for a Common Learning; General Education. 45 ! i800-1960. He noted many educational changes that took place during these years and their subsequent impact on the nature of general education. He devoted the second part of his study to a review of the general education programs at seventeen widely scattered institutions. The most recent major study of general education is the report by Bell (1966) recommending a substantial revi sion of the program at Columbia University. The study, |The Reforming of General Education, traces in detail the origin and development of such programs at the University of j Chicago, Harvard University, and Columbia University, and i finds all three programs deficient in important ways. Bell’s chief criticisms are that (1) the current courses designed to meet the general education needs of the students have little to do with imparting to the student how they do j"know" and verify knowledge, and (2) the internal unity of ithe various disciplines is increasingly fragmented by the proliferation of courses. He also criticizes the existing program for its failure to provide meaningful problems for student analysis by the tools of his discipline. Bell broadly concluded that the program of general education should revolve around the methods of conceptual inquiry. 46 The solution Bell offers necessitates a reorganiza tion of the four-year curriculum. During the first college | jyear the student should concentrate on acquiring the neces sary background in historical and humanistic knowledge. This knowledge would serve as the backdrop for the second and third year focus on learning the techniques of a dis cipline. The fourth year, a year of general studies, would jbe devoted to the application of this disciplinary methodol- ] iogy to broad intellectual and policy questions of the day. The curriculum proposed by Bell would reverse the current order by making general education the capstone of the stu dent's college education. Summary With the exceptions of the Fifty-First Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (1952) and i General Education in Action (1952), the major studies have jnot concerned themselves with the important questions of student needs, the psychological basis of learning, and evaluating the success of the programs in terms of changed student behavior. The review of this part of the literature also reveals the existence of a basic dichotomy among the proponents of general education toward student-centered and 47 I |intellectually-centered approaches. What is surprising is that so few of the great intellects of these middle decades |of the twentieth century produced major reports treating i i general education during the height of the general education movement. . I j General Education in the Junior College The early proponents of general education in the junior colleges drew heavily on the writings and speeches of [American college and university presidents for their basic I | |ideas. Proctor (192 7) quoted extensively from the works of I I Alexis F. Lange, David Starr Jordan, and Ray Lyman Wilbur, as did Sexson and Harbeson (1946) many years later. These writers strongly supported the four-year junior college because they considered the first and second college years to be essentially "secondary" or "general" in nature. i Although the four-year college movement ultimately failed, jits early advocates were successful in focusing the atten tion of junior college educators on the concept of general education. Koos (192 5) had earlier pointed out that the junior college offered students an opportunity to round out their general education (p. 19), but he had not treated gen eral education as a specific and separate function of 48 the junior college. By 1935 the functions of the junior college were tnore clearly perceived by its advocates. Campbell (1935, pp. 109-110) wrote that if the junior college was to achieve I jcertain broad social ends "it must develop curricula that I are far more comprehensive than those found in a great majority of junior colleges." Webb (1936, p. 341) com plained that the junior college was seriously "neglecting I |one of its major functions, that of providing an opportunity i fro the completion of general education." Johnson (1939, p 113) wrote that "during the four decades of the junior I Icollege movement . . . the needs of youth have changed . . . i No longer should it be necessary to ape . . . the first two years of the university." Johnson reported the general education programs of Pasadena Junior College, the Four- jYear College at the University of Chicago, and Stephens College. The program at Stephens prescribed courses in i communications, appreciation of the beautiful, social adjustment, health, mental health, consumers' problems, I and philosophy of living. Johnson (p. 134) urged junior jcolleges to "forge new curricula in terms of the life needs of youth." | 49 I j Sexson and Harbeson (1946) outlined the three major general education functions at the four-year junior colleges jas (1) developing a citizen actuated by a sound philosophy jof life, (2) developing a citizen capable of working out his |own highest self-realization, and (3) developing a citizen ( capable of functioning in a democratic society. The junior college must also organize its curriculum in such a way as to create a foundation in physical and mental health; it ! must also (pp. 55-56) develop within the student a capacity to feel at home in the world . . . It must develop within the student ’ a capacity for self-initiated, self-directed study | . . . it must develop within the student a construc tively critical attitude resulting in the discovery j of problems, accompanied by an adequate training in ! the problem-solving technique . . . it must develop | within the student a knowledge of the worthy objec- j tives of life . . . It must lead the student through I a process of self-discovery. . . . It must develop within the student a universally social point of view. They list (pp. 243-245) the major areas of personal need as (1) personal, (2) physical and mental health, (3) socio economic, (4) home life, and (5) vocational. i i j Johnson (1952) reported the findings of his exten sive study of general education in the California junior colleges under the title, General Education in Action. The study is particularly valuable for its coverage of specific 50 general education practices felt to be highly successful by junior college faculty members. Individual chapters ! reported the implementation og general education goals in |(1) advising, counseling, and guidance, (2) psychology and personal adjustment, (3) health, physical education, and recreation, (4) family life education, (5) communication, (6) the creative arts and the humanities, (7) the natural jsciences and mathematics, (8) vocational courses, (9) citi- jzenship and the social studies, and (10) extraclass pro grams . s i Johnson (p. 36) described general education as "con- i 'cerned with the total personality" and recommended the use of both "the functional and a carefully planned infusion approach." He described (p. 44) functional courses as those "based directly upon problems and areas of living derived jfrom and identified by studies of the characteristics and !the needs of students and the society in which they live and are a part." Courses of this type are to be organized around "problem areas," examples of which would be "Marriage and the Family," "Communication Skills,” "Psychology of Personal Adjustment," "Consumer Problems," "Personal and Community Health," and "Art for Enjoyment." 51 The "infusion approach” was stated to be the idea that "outcomes in such areas as human relations, personal adjustment, citizenship and communication skills can be taught as opportunity arises in any area of the college pro gram" (p. 45). Conscious planning was required, however, if the infusion of general education goals into transfer, spe cialized, and vocational courses was to be successfully achieved. | The treatment of the material by Johnson deserves 1 jspecial attention. The chapter on family life education may j iserve as an example. In his introduction to this objective j of general education, Johnson (p. 117) noted: i i | The family is an amazing teaching agency. It teaches the child to talk, frequently to read and write, teaches approved eating habits, teaches him to dress himself, teaches toilet habits, cleanli ness, and manners. It is doing all this in pre school years. Indeed it is arguable that what the child has acquired of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and emotional patterns before the age of five is greater in volume and importance than all he will j learn the rest of his life in school. In addition to its teaching role, the family functions as a social institution in many ways, some of which are: (1) providing a place for love and affection; (2) imparting attitudes, folkways, mores, and sometimes discipline which its members need and respect; (3) affording protection and refuge; (4) functioning as an economic entity; and (5) im parting status to its members. 52 For these things that the family has been and is, for what it has done and is doing, but more par ticularly, for what the family can become in our changing social order, it rightfully claims a place in programs of general education. Johnson proceeded (p. 12 0) to list the specific goals of family life education as the following: I ! a. Help those who are or will be parents see how family living affects the personality develop ment of every person throughout his life. | b. Develop goals and understandings for courtship and marriage which will cultivate new values and satisfactions of affection, companionship, | and shared living, including but undominated ; by sex. | c . Help family members learn how to share the ! responsibilities of managing a home and creat- j ing a satisfying home atmosphere uniquely their own. d. Develop in parents and prospective parents attitudes, understanding, and skill in guiding children which will make of the family group a gracious and enduring entity. The report next reviewed the family life education programs at Long Beach City College, Contra Costa Junior i College, El Camino College, Stockton College, Mount San Antonio College, and Santa Monica City College; it then reported specific courses such as "Child Care" that differ ent institutions created to meet special needs of their students. The concluding section of the chapter recounted 53 both the problems and the promises of family life education. i ; Johnson reported (pp. 386-389) a significant number of encouraging general education developments in progress in the California junior colleges. He stated these to be i |(1) a recognition that effective programs of general educa- i jtion must be college-wide in scope; (2) the offering of spe cific courses which emphasize particular general education outcomes; (3) the adoption of a functional approach to the planning and development of general education programs; (4) a wide recognition of the role of counseling and guid ance in planning, building, operating, and evaluating gen- i eral education programs; (5) a recognition that general edu cation occurs as a direct result of teaching procedures and methods as well as of course content; (6) the use of a wide range of instructional materials; (7) increased planning to jmeet individual needs; (8) a move toward making the junior college a truly community college; and (9) the participation of junior college students in the planning and building of programs of general education. The National Society for the Study of Education (1956) published its Fifty-Fifth Yearbook, Part I, under the title, The Public Junior College. The Yearbook 54 Committee (p. 72) stated its acceptance of the description of general education developed by Johnson in his study of igeneral education in the California junior colleges. The Yearbook Committee (p. 72) then stated: I The complexities of contemporary life, the pressures of speed, the fears and the actualities of conflict and war, the alarming increase in problems of mental health, the threatened breakdown of family life— these and other problems and concerns consistently revealed in surveys of youth and adults attest the demand for more general education. Herein lies an i essential need, one which education and society dare not ignore. ! j Thornton (pp. 119-120) amplified the goals of gen- I eral education as follows: 1. That general education is not an attempt to achieve new purposes; rather it is an attempt to achieve accepted purposes directly and effectively. 2 . That education should be useful to the student, effecting improvements in his behavior. 3. That these concepts of utility and of changed behavior lead to a consideration of social and individual needs, and to selection of instruc tional materials calculated to help students satisfy their needs and the needs of society. 4. That because of concern about students, about improved behavior, and about meeting needs, those interested in general education are led inescapably to a consideration of course orga nization, of teaching method, and of appropriate selection of materials, in some cases, the logic of their analysis causes them to depart from traditional subject organization in favor 55 of a more functional organization of educational experiences drawn from many disciplines but contrib uting harmoniously to student growth. [Thornton reported the three basic approaches to general education to be (1) the liberal-arts approach, (2) the sur vey approach, and (3) the functional approach. He found I (pp. 12 0-121) that the former expects students to complete courses in several fields of knowledge, such as mathematics, social science, psychology, English composition, and health and physical education. The survey course attempts to cut across departmental lines to present the student with an introductory acquaintance of sub-areas within a broad field. I The functional course approach uses materials from any dis cipline which contributes to the growth of the student toward the course objectives; examples of functional jcourses are "Family Life," "Personal Adjustment," and "The ^Citizen and His Government." i In The Community College, Bogue (1960) reflected on the nature and the role of these two-year institutions. After reviewing many statements of community college philos ophy, he summarized his thoughts: In the final analysis, just what is the catalytic element in this discussion? Is it not the convic tion that free men gain and retain their freedom by r 56 intelligence and that without it there can be no guarantee of its survival? Is it not the belief that individual and social prosperity in a democracy requires personal and social competency, sine qua ; non! To give a larger measure of assurance for free- I dom and prosperity, there must be an ever-increasing diffusion of knowledge and understanding. The extent of learning should be gauged by the capacities of all persons; it should be a lifelong process; it should be one of the major provisions of cooperative enter prise through governments, as well as by privately controlled interests. In exactly the same manner and for the same basic reasons that have brought univer sal elementary and high-school opportunities to the masses, so the community-college movement, per se, stems directly from the further application of this 1 principle. ! pogue proceeded (p. 58) to state not only is general educa tion "the outgrowth of life situations" but that (p. 61) it "should be at the heart of the community program." . j - \ Medsker (1960) reported on several aspects of gen eral education in his monumental study of the two-year col leges, The Junior College: Progress and Prospect. He believed that the general education goals set forth by John son implied that the outcomes of general education were to be evaluated in terms of behavior (pp. 56-58). He further stated (p. 58) that this "is a difficult kind of education; it is safe to say that most institutions, if they have embraced it in theory, have attained it only in modest mea sure. " Medsker further pointed out (pp. 58-59) that only a i jfew junior colleges introduced courses that focused on 57 behavior and that by far the majority— 77 percent— relied i primarily on conventional or departmental courses to meet their responsibilities in general education. Of this prac tice, he commented (p. 59): If any course is to serve as a significant element in general education, the teacher must consciously turn it in that direction. The course is likely to make its greatest contribution if it becomes the con tinuing concern, not only of the individual instruc tor, but also of the entire faculty and administra- j tion. With a few notable exceptions, this pervasive concern was not discernible in the institutions. ! The administrators of the colleges that relied j for general education on conventional courses were I prone to rest their case on the fact that a good introductory departmental course per se makes a sub stantial contribution to the students' general educa tion. Although it may be granted that such a course makes some contribution, it is hardly the best medium for the purpose. The mere availability of courses, conventional or otherwise, is not sufficient indication of the seriousness with which a junior college takes its responsibility for general education. The extent to which students take such courses is a better index. If a college relies on conventional courses, it might be assumed that the group most likely to obtain breadth and perspective would be the students pre paring to transfer to senior colleges. Yet the cur riculum requirements of many preprofessional pro grams restrict the students' experience in the vari ous fields of knowledge. It is even more unlikely that specifically prescribed vocational subjects will permit the terminal student to venture far beyond his special curriculum. In fact, an examina tion of the suggested or required sequence of courses in terminal curricula in the cooperating institutions showed very limited requirements in general educa tion . 58 Medsker's study of general education concluded ( (pp. 62-63) that (1) the junior colleges have made rela- | Itively little progress in developing well-organized curric- i lula for general education; (2) the institutions did not I lindicate a compelling conviction that an adequate program of i general education requires a conscious and systematic effort; (3) few junior colleges had formulated the specific objectives of general education in operational terms; and (4) little development of general education had occurred in the past decade. He further pointed to three factors which had contributed to the junior college failure in general education (p. 63): (1) the demands of vocational curricula which make inroads on time for general education; (2) the insistence of four-year institutions that lower division courses in the junior colleges be on a par with their requirements; and (3) the lack of teachers who are committed to general education. Blocker, Plummer, and Richardson (1965) proposed that the junior college curriculum be organized on a broad four-divisional basis reflecting the major purposes of the junior college— academic, technical and vocational science, service, and community-service. Students would be placed in one or the other divisions on the basis of ability and 59 educational goals with the possiblity of transferring to any of the others should they later desire to do so. They i (described (p. 212) the role of general education in this | jdivisional framework as follows: I All divisions of the two-year comprehensive institu- I tion should be strongly laced with general education courses, appropriate to the talent level of the stu dents. If the need of the individual to establish and maintain satisfying economic status is a strong motivational factor, it does not negate the impor- ! tance of communication and sequential-thinking : skills. Minds geared to analysis, criticism, and creativity are as necessary to the vocational world I as to the academic world. i i Throughout their study, The Two-Year College: A Social Synthesis. the authors stressed the importance of guidance, counseling, and the necessity for knowing the sociological composition of the students who attend the community col leges. Their belief that institutional research was impor tant to curriculum planning was clearly stated. i j Thornton (1966) attempted to distinguish between ( general education courses and elective courses in the fol lowing manner (pp. 197-198): The elective section of a given student's college education may include any course listed in the college catalogue. After the graduation require ments of the college and the specific requirements for occupational specialization have been met, a student may complete his education by free choice 60 from any of the courses for which he has met the pre requisites . For otheps, the same course may be a part of specialization; for him, it is an elective, chosen to satisfy an individual interest. The only distinction, in this case, arises from the student's purpose in enrolling in the course . . . Some writers include this category of elective courses under the heading of general education. Such a confusion of purpose then leads to suggestions that "Anthropology" (or astronomy, or ceramics) is a good general educa- | tion course. Clearly the free "election" of courses interesting to stu dents did not constitute general education as far as Thorn- i |ton was concerned. Thornton described (p. 198) general edu- I [cation as a program "specifically designed to prepare young jpeople for the responsibilities they share in common as cit- i Jizens of a free society and for wholesome and creative par- I ticipation in a wide range of life activities." The idea that general education programs should be specifically designed was recognized by Thornton as not accepted by all proponents of general education, but he jus tified (p. 199) careful planning on the following grounds: (1) the economy of the student's time; (2) the impossibility of a student's enrolling in all the needed introductory courses; (3) the student's need for a coherent and unified interpretation of modern scholarship, rather than for an introduction to five or six unrelated aspects of it; and (4) efficiency in organizing instruction to achieve general 61 jeducation purposes directly rather than as by-products of specialized courses. j Thornton's review of the catalogue requirements for jgraduation led him to conclude (p. 2 06) that junior colleges j are far from basic agreement on their commitment to general education: In so far as graduation requirements indicate the effective commitment of public junior colleges to j the concept of a common minimum of general education ! for all students, it is possible to conclude that ! the colleges agree only on the skills of communica tion as elements in that minimum. There is substan tial agreement on courses that are intended to pre pare students to assume the duties of citizenship and on physical education courses. Beyond that, more than half ot these colleges have attempted through prescription to ensure that their graduates have been exposed to a well-rounded and carefully planned curriculum in general education, although only nine of thirty of them include a specific catalogue statement on the nature or objectives of general education. The difficulty of developing a comprehensive pattern 'of required general education was traced (p. 2 09) to the |following sources: (1) the complexity of the undertaking; (2) the autonomy of public junior colleges working indepen dently or imitatively of each other, lacking resources for thorough independent study; (3) the transfer requirements of universities that consume the bulk of the student's time; (4) the limitation of time of students in occupational programs; and (5) the uncertainty of the educational proc- I ess itself. Thornton designed (pp. 213-215) a series of four courses that would contribute significantly to the stu dent's general education while requiring no more than one- third of his total time; these courses were titled "Communi- I cations," "American Civilization," "The Physical World," and "Human Behavior." The content of these courses must be con tinuously evaluated to ensure that they fulfill their basic purposes. The course in "Human Behavior," for example, should be evaluated in terms of the following question: "Will this material assist the students to gain the insights which will enable them to improve their practices in human relations?" (p. 215). Summary Those writers who have concerned themselves with the nature and quality of general education in the junior col- ! leges seem to be in close agreement on (1) the purposes, goals, and objectives of general education, (2) the accep tance of a functional approach to general education curric ulum construction, (3) an emphasis on the need for careful planning of general education programs, (4) the belief that general education outcomes should be evaluated in terms of 63 behavioral changes, and (5) the belief that general educa tion in the junior colleges falls short of the claims often jmade as to its success. It also seems clear that these jwriters would prefer junior college general education to be jmore student-centered than it is in reality. Various causes were found to have contributed to this disparity between theory and practice, the chief ones being the impact of the university requirements on the time of transfer students and ithe impact of specialization on the time of terminal stu dents . None of these writers treated the limited time fac tor in imaginative or even satisfactory ways. It is also possible to conclude from the writing of these authors that many junior college faculty members are not deeply committed to the type of general education preferred by the writers. j Recent Trends in General Education t The popularity of "general education" has declined iin recent years according to several authors but this "fact" | seemingly depends on the definition of general education the particular writer has in mind when making the statement. Brown and Mayhew (1965, p. 105) declare that "the general education movement was a serious attempt that failed" and describe (pp. 97-99) the forces that have affected all of | 64 jhigher education as (1) the shift in population from a rural pattern to an urban one, (2) the racial revolution, (3) the rise of automation and the existence of a steady and high rate of unemployment, (4) the existence of substantial lei- ! sure for large elements of the population, (5) the rapid obsolescence of previously viable social institutions, and ](6) the self-generating power of technology. These develop- i | Iments implied to Brown and Mayhew (pp. 105-106) the need [ j jfor a new integrating principle for creating the framework I jof the college curriculum. Axelrod et al. (1969, p. 64) strongly agree with Brown and Mayhew (1965) on the failure of both general edu- j cation and higher education. They feel (pp. 49-50) that both of these broke down in the 1958-59 school year, marking the end of the old era. They report (p. 58) that deperson- jalization of instruction, course proliferation, and curric- ;ular fragmentation were major contributors to the educa tional collapse. Certain of their observations (pp. 65, 71) should be noted in full: In any case, all of these distinctions— general education and specialized studies, liberal arts and professional education, occupational and transfer curricula— are false distinctions for today and cer tainly for tomorrow, however useful they might have been in some other world of the past. 65 The community colleges have been in a particu larly difficult position, having inherited all of these distinctions from the four-year institution at a time when the meanings of these distinctions were I becoming obscure and their usefulness outdated. ! 1 . . . the standard model of undergraduate education j has fostered uniformity in curriculum structure and j depersonalization in relations between faculty and | student and between student and student. The new models, on the other hand, are seeking to create, even on the largest campuses, relatively small "pri mary groups" . . . The standard model has set "breadth" in a student's education against "depth," and colleges following this model have achieved neither breadth nor depth. The new models render ! meaningless such outdated curricular polarities as J general education versus specialized education . . . j The standard model has built a wall between the j campus and the surrounding community. j Mayhew (1967) states in Higher Education in the j Revolutionary Decades that general education is an attempt to keep pace with the various cultural and technological I changes that continuously take place, but that, in a sense, general education (p. 22 3) is almost a meaningless term since "people define it in almost any way their fancies dic- jtate." He suggests (pp. 229-235) several questions that might be used to evaluate a program, practice, or course of general education: 1. Does the program or practice affect a substan tial portion of the entire student body? 2. Does the practice, program, or course realisti cally contribute to broadening students' views of human life? 66 3. Does the program, practice, or course have identifiable aims or objectives which can be stated in terms of human behavior? 4. Does the program, practice, or course realisti cally recognize prior experiences of students? 5. Does the program, practice, or course make explicit the mechanisms for achieving integra tion? 6. Is the program or practice based on a holistic conception of human personality? 7. Does the program, practice, or course view as j primary its own intrinsic goals? I 8. Is the program, practice, or course as well I staffed and financed as other comparable parts j of the institution? I ! 9. Does the teaching in the program or course reflect attention to sound scholarship, probing deeply enough into a subject to bring about sig nificant changes in people's beliefs and a demand for students actively to practice the skills which are being taught? 10. Does the program or practice make use of what is known of individual differences among human beings? In attempting to distinguish between courses 'designed for special or general education, Brubacher (1965, p. 21) finds that "there is nothing inherent in subject- matter alone which determines whether a subject is general or special" and that the distinction rests ultimately on the purpose one has in mind. He believes (p. 24) that general education is "a form of self-realization" through which a person "achieves mastery of his own powers." He wonders if 67 the future of general education is not perhaps to be in the i development of aesthetic value among students (p. 44). I Mayhew (1969) states in Colleges Today and Tomorrow that general education has greatly declined in recent years. The primary reasons for this decline are the replacement of core courses with introductory courses in disciplines and the indoctrination of young professors with disciplinary concentration. He further states (p. 200): One way of accomodating lip service to general edu cation and pressures for specialization is the ten dency to label so many courses as satisfying general education requirements that no integrated educational experience even for a plurality of students is pos sible. To suggest that Introduction to Business, Economics, Principles of Sociology, and Social Psychology are of equal value in achieving social science outcomes of general education strains even the most flexible of logics. This tendency seems especially characteristic of junior colleges, which must accept many students with little or no success in academic type courses, yet which must, because of state law, include general education in the experi ence of those who will receive an associate of arts degree. He further comments on the decline of interest in general education by the major education journals: During the 1950's, the general education movement generated the most vital literature concerned with higher education. Journals such as the Journal of General Education, Journal of Higher Education, and the Basic College Quarterly were filled with dis cussions of new courses, approaches to teaching or 68 the objectives of general education. Conference 1 proceedings, anthologies of course descriptions, and a number of monographs and research reports added 1 volume, and frequently insight, to this literature. At present, however, the Journal of General Educa tion seems more preoccupied with quite precious j belles-lettres than with curricular problems and in the renamed University Quarterly seems headed in the i same direction. It has been seven years since the American Association for Higher Education has spon sored a book on general education; and annual work shop proceedings from such places as Catholic Univer sity or the University of California at Berkeley j seemed preoccupied with governance, federal relation- i ships, or freedom and order. He believes (pp. 2 07-2 08) that the reasons for the i jfailure of general education are (1) the level of implemen- i I jtation has frequently been low, (2) all too often, general [education courses were viewed as just so many obstacles to j be overcome on the road to a degree, (3) the great emphasis on research as the hallmark of academic success, and (4) the drive by institutions to become known as graduate centers of [excellence. He concludes (p. 212) that the "virtues of some form of general education are so pervasive" that a search i j ["should be made for some broad principles that will allow general education to flourish." The Committee for the Study of Education at Stanford, as cited in the Stanford Observer (December, 1968), reported: 69 The faculty of today's university, for better or worse, consists of a collection of discipline- oriented specialists. General education, as epito mized by the Chicago curriculum of the Hutchins era and the Columbia two-year sequence is dead or dying. The Harvard general education ideal, as defined in the famous Redbook of 1946, did not ultimately flourish in its own birthplace . . . The faculty member whom the university seeks to attract is an individualist who, while accepting . . . shared tasks within his discipline, nonethe less prefers to teach and learn what he wants to teach and learn, not what is prescribed by a commit tee . ; Hechinger reports in the New York Times (December 21, 1969) that Dean Ernest May of Harvard Univer sity is rethinking the general education pattern at that institution. The article states in part: . . . at Harvard and elsewhere, the core has long been whittled away by new experiments— independent study, early permission to take graduate courses, and perhaps most important, credit for college- level general education courses (advanced placement) completed in high school. . . . the concept of general education, once the I soul of liberalism, is under contemptuous attack | like liberalism itself. The most charitable objec- | tion to general education is that the world has become too complicated for the notion of a shared core of knowledge. Summary There is little doubt but that general education is undergoing major revision at several of the nation's leading institutions. individuals such as Bell (1966) at Columbia 70 University and Dean May at Harvard, as well as committees such as the one at Stanford, are currently urging major | jchanges in the general education pattern at their institu tions. The major forces contributing to change seem to be jfaculty disinterest— if not outright resistance, the height ened interest in disciplinary approaches to education, the impact of a multitude of social and technological forces jfrom the outside society, and a widespread belief that the old pattern of general education had lost its dynamism. The new pattern or replacement for general education is still not clearly defined, but it appears to place very great emphasis on a disciplinary approach. As such, it can very i broadly be described as intellectually-centered. Recent Trends in Junior College General Education | When Thornton (1969) did not treat general education I differently in any major respect in the third edition of his The Community Junior College, he probably reflected the current state of indifference among junior college educators toward the concept. Gleazer, the Executive Director of the I American Association of Junior Colleges, failed to include general education as one of the major functions of the junior college in his book, This Is the Community College 71 (1962). During the past five years, the Junior College Journal has treated the topic in only very superficial and secondary ways. Kelley and Wilbur (1970) do not spell out the role of the instructor in general education in their book, Teaching in the Community Junior College. Johnson I (1969) made only sparse reference to general education in his recent book, Islands of Innovation Expanding, although he did report rather extensively certain concepts and tech niques, such as work-study and programmed instruction, that might be utilized by imaginative developers of general education programs. The most provocative ideas on general education are set forth by Cohen (1969) in his book, Dateline '79: Heretical Concepts for the Community College. Cohen seems to be in basic agreement with earlier writers (Reynolds, 1946; Medsker, 1960) that general education in the junior [colleges has not been overly successful (p. 150): The community college has never really tried general education. In this context, "general education" is not what is typically pursued in today's community college, even though the words appear among the requirements for most curriculum programs. It is not a distribution requirement— six units of English, six units of American studies, etc.— which is often used to lend a "collegiate" tone to what are actually occupational or remedial programs. 72 General education requires more than exposure to , blocks of knowledge arranged by discipline. It must be an interdisciplinary institutional thrust, one that is built on principles of integration, and effect on individuals. He believes that general education must be interdisciplinary because new knowledge cuts across disciplines and the prob lems of life cut across academic disciplines. The need today is that of training people in conceptual analysis, standards of judgment, and a capacity for making value judg- Iments. He states (pp. 151, 152) somewhat more acidly: I { The type of general education that is frequently i favored by advocates— and the type least often found | in the community colleges— is predicated on the belief that there should be a direct relationship between the end behaviors sought by the curriculum designers and what is taught. Rather than as a means of instituting defined change in the community, general education is usually considered another "opportunity"— a curricular offer ing on the same smorgasbord table with other pro grams . . . j As a concept, general education staggers through the history of the community college. Its feeble state is a serious matter, reflecting many colleges' abro- | gation of the responsibilities most of them were created to fulfill; this is the result of a failure of confidence and purpose. Cohen would create a new community college curric ulum based on an integration of learning and experience. He describes his proposed community college curriculum of 73 jthe 1980's in the following manner (pp. 152-153): The college of '79 bases its offerings on a general I education core not only because of logic or persua- | sion but because its image of its community has led it to believe that general education is most appro priate. Thus it builds on a dual rationale: first, that general education is needed, and the college is best suited to provide it; second, its own research efforts have indicated that its community is best j served when all citizens have participated in a | shared experience. In the college of '79, students confront situa tions and work through problems in which value issues are at stake. They are required to take and i defend positions on community issues, not alone ! through bibliographic searches and the writing of i papers but by working with people and groups who are j attempting to cope with existent problems. In con- i trast to "role playing," these then become real I situations. j Students work in hospitals, laboratories, fac- ! tories, and social agencies. They campaign for can- ! didates of their choice and collect and distribute funds, not as "student activities" but as part of their general education curriculum requirements. Integration of learning and experience is not merely hoped for— it is the program, one which can be articulated into a "coherent intellectual structure that is rationally defensible." Summary I i With the exception of the study by Cohen (1969) very little has been published recently about general education in the junior colleges. Cohen's ideas are important because they make general education the cornerstone of the junior college curriculum and, further, because they utilize gen eral education as the bridge spanning the community college 74 and the community itself. Hopefully, Dateline '79 will re open the dialogue about general education during the decade jof the 1970’s. t j j Literature on Attitudes and Opinions I I Several studies are available to persons wishing to create attitudinal measuring instruments. Jahoda, Deutsch, jand Cook (1951) review certain limitations of attitude mea- i feurement, specifically warning of the dangers in predicting ! jbehavior from measured attitude. They define "attitude" j(p. 112) as "a more or less enduring predisposition to respond affectively toward a specified entity." Of great value to the researcher is their schematic outline (pp. 386- 387) for the description and measurement of attitude, which included the following categories: (1) cognitive orienta tion (perceptions, beliefs, etc.), (2) affective orientation ! (what should be done?), (3) degree of uncertainty or convic tion, (4) degree of covertness or overtness, (5) degree of consistency or inconsistency, (6) degree of salience or object in personal life space (ego involvement, etc.), (7) consciousness or unconsciousness of the attitude, (8) tenacity of the attitude, and (9) isolation or interde pendence with other attitudes. They also describe 75 (pp. 195-196) the steps to be followed in constructing Likert-type scales, a series of statements to which respon- * dents are asked to respond in terms of several degrees of agreement or disagreement. Miller (1964) reviews an array of testing instru ments, citing guides to research design and statistical analysis. Galfo and Miller (1965) also note the problems related to attitude scaling, warning that the responses are neither right nor wrong and subject to change with the pas sage of time. Such problems do not make attitude testing impossible but do necessitate the careful construction of the testing instrument. Shaw and Wright (1967) review both the nature of attitudes and the construction of various scales designed to measure attitude They report (pp. 6-10) the dimensions of attitudes to be (1) based upon the evaluation of the refer- 'ent objective and giving rise to behavior; (2) varying in quality and intensity on a continuum from positive through negative; (3) learned; (4) directed to specific referents; (5) interrelated; and (6) stable and enduring. Fitzgerald (1964) developed the model for this study. He sought to measure faculty opinions toward (1) the purposes, programs, and policies of the junior colleges, 76 (2) the administrative community, (3) the academic community and (4) the student community. He attempted to determine if <a significant different in attitude existed between the jmeans of the following pairs: (1) first and fourth year j instructors, (2) instructors with high school and four-year college teaching experience, (3) instructors who attended a junior college and those who did not, (4) instructors teach ing in transfer courses and those teaching in occupational- i I jtechnical courses, (5) division chairmen and faculty asso- i I jciation presidents, (6) instructors in large and small I I I junior colleges, (7) instructors in rural and urban junior colleges, (8) instructors in independent and nonindependent districts, (9) instructors in new and old junior colleges, and (10) instructors in Northern and Southern California. Fitzgerald found that it makes little difference {whether an instructor is in his first year of teaching, his fourth year, has had high-school teaching experience, four- jyear college teaching experience, attended a junior college, I did not attend a junior college, is a division or department chairman, or a faculty association president. He further found that it made little difference whether an instructor is from a large college, a small college, an urban college, a rural college, a college in an independent district, a 77 college in a nonindependent district, a new college, an old college, a Northern California college, or a Southern |California college. He did find, however, a difference in attitudes between instructors teaching in transfer courses and instructors teaching in occupational-technical courses. He broadly concluded that the junior college instructor both understands and accepts his role in the multi-purpose insti tution, but that he is not particularly sympathetic with t Icertain of its purposes. I i Potter (1961) reports on the attitudes of students, teachers, and administrators toward general education in the Florida junior colleges. Using the interview method, he j enjoyed greater flexibility than Fitzgerald. He found (1) that no basic philosophy for planning general education programs was dominant, (2) that classics, introductory courses, and survey courses all seemed equally important, | and (3) functional courses were not generally used. He also reported that both faculty and students were in fundamental agreement concerning the nature and objectives of general education and approved a comprehensive program offering a variety of experiences. He concluded (1) that general education should consist of required areas of study in 78 I iwhich a variety of electives were offered, and (2) that the greatest emphasis within the program should be placed on social studies, communication, and the humanities. Summary I The literature on attitudes and opinion reveals that the construction of measuring instruments is possible and Ithat the most common type of item is an opinion statement to !which the respondent is asked to indicate the strength of his agreement or disagreement along a continuum. Fitzgerald I j ( 1 9 6 4 ) used this type of instrument in his study of faculty i (attitudes toward policies and practices of the junior jcollege. j CHAPTER III i i THE PROCEDURE The procedure followed in this study consisted of the following steps: (1) developing the questionnaire, (2) the pilot study, (3) determining the population sample, j j(4) the distribution and return of the questionnaires, and j (5) the tabulation and treatment of returned questionnaires. Each of these steps will be summarized in this chapter. Developing the Questionnaire The development of the questionnaire followed a review of the literature and a series of interviews with junior college instructors and administrators. The initial Istep consisted of a compilation of statements taken from the ] literature of general education. The criteria governing the selection was whether or not the statement reflected student-centered or intellectually-centered concepts of general education. Over 400 statements were grouped 79 80 originally in the following categories; (1) the goals, pur- I ; poses, and objectives of general education; (2) the develop- ! iment and organization of the general education curriculum; (3) the administration and evaluation of the general educa tion program; (4) the role of the faculty in general educa tion; (5) the methods and practices of general education; and (6) innovative practices in general education. As many questions overlapped the categories, the categories for the purpose of this study were reduced to (1) the goals, pur poses, and objectives of general education; (2) the general education curriculum; and (3) the methods and practices of general education. All questions not broadly fitting one of these categories were discarded. All other questions were carefully reviewed for length and clarity of statement with many additional ones being dropped. The total number of jquestions was now reduced to approximately 150 items. | Each item was duplicated and distributed for evalua tion to an informal committee of instructors and administra tors . The members of this committee were asked whether they thought each item valuable in determining the attitude of educators toward general education. This criterion was used by these educators to mark each item (1) very valuable, (2) valuable, (3) barely acceptable, and (4) of little I 81 I Jvalue. They were also asked to indicate whether a rewording of the question was desirable. A major concern of members of this committee was whether the term "general education" should be defined in the study. This possibility was i rejected by the committee on the basis that each respondent would be defining the term in his own way by the responses he would make. The second major concern of members of this committee was whether the questions should be general or specific in nature. The committee concluded that if the intent of the study was to determine whether junior college faculty were oriented toward student-centered or intellec tually-centered concepts of general education, either type of question could be used. The researcher chose to use broad and generally worded items chiefly because of their repetitive occurrence in the literature of general education jand widespread familiarity. The sixty questions that were thought to be most valuable by the members of this committee were distributed to another group for further evaluation. Ten additional questions were discarded at this time and many others were reconstructed for the purpose of securing greater clarity of statement. The remaining fifty questions were next sub mitted to a panel of judges for determination of validity. 82 The criterion used was whether the item reflected an orien tation toward student-centered or intellectually-centered (concepts of general education. Several of the items were i I ljudged to be neutral in that a strongly agree or strongly jdisagree response would not necessarily reflect any partic- I ular orientation. However, because these items were felt to be important to the detection of attitudinal differences between pairs of junior college faculty, they were used in I iPart I of this study but not included in Part II of the f jstudy. The items not considered in Part II are listed I below by item number: 10. Neither the psychological-social nor the intel- ' lectual needs of the student should be subordi- j nated to the other. 11. There is no general philosophy according to which a general education curriculum should be constructed. | i 17. General education should be planned for all students regardless of their ability or achievements. j 23. To properly utilize the extracurricular for | general education, the school must intrude upon the students' complete and autonomous control of nonacademic activities. 32. A representative curriculum committee should have the basic responsibility for developing the program of general education. 34. The administration of the program of general education should be the responsibility of the Dean of Instruction. 83 46. Courses in the history of religion as a cul tural phenomena are inappropriate for general education. 50. Ethnic studies should be part of the general education program of all students. The Pilot Study j The population for the pilot study was the faculty of the College of the Sequoias. The respondents were asked to indicate their degree of agreement with each item by i marking (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) undecided, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree. Forty faculty mem bers participated in the pilot study. The "undecided" col umn was determined to be most indicative of the validity of the item. Two items were marked undecided five or more times but were retained in the final questionnaire as they were felt to reflect current ideas in general education. These questions are as follows: 40. General education should seek to involve the j student emotionally in the social problems of our time. 45. The techniques of group therapy have great value in the general education curriculum. Several other items were marked "undecided" three or four times. These were either modified slightly for the final questionnaire or retained in that form if nothing was felt to be wrong with the question. 84 The Population Sample I As the mechanics of the research design did not pre clude large group sampling, the researcher determined to seek the total population of instructional and administra tive personnel whenever possible. This decision was made in an attempt to avoid the statistical uncertainties often raised by the use of small populations; it also increased j jthe probability of a smaller percentage return of completed (questionnaires. The population sample for this study consisted of the total population of deans of instruction, deans of stu dent personnel, and the chairmen of the language arts, social science, mathematics-physical science, business edu cation, and vocational-technical education divisions of eighty-five California public community junior colleges. Two instructors were selected randomly from the business education and the vocational-technical education divisions. One instructor was selected randomly from each of the fol lowing areas of academic concentration: English, speech, history, social science, mathematics, and physical science. The selections were made from the 1969-70 Directory of the California Schools. Whenever only one instructor was listed 85 within a teaching area, he was automatically included. Sev- I I eral institutions did not have certain of the positions sur veyed, so the number of questionnaires mailed was less than eighty-five in some categories. A total of 1166 question naires were mailed. I The Distribution and Return of Questionnaires i Following the procedure established by Fitzgerald I | (1964), each member of the population to be sampled was identified by a code number which was printed on the ques- I jtionnaire. The purpose of coding was to enable the j jresearcher to send follow-up letters should the initial i i response be very weak. The cover letter stated the purpose of the coding and the confidential treatment of the responses. The respondents were asked not to sign the form, j The cover letter stated the purposes of the study, the sponsorship and guidance of the study, the endorsement I jby the California Junior College Association, the source of litem criteria, the confidential treatment of all responses, the estimated answering time required to complete the ques tionnaire, and the hope that the questionnaire could be returned within the week. 86 ! Endorsement was received from the California Junior ! College Association Committee on Research and Development. )The committee, headed by Dr. Frank C. Pearce, Dean of Instruction at San Mateo City College, returned the endorse ment within one month. Dr. Pearce stated in his letter of jendorsement that "in view of the common concern of community colleges at this time with general education, I cannot think of a more appropriate topic to pursue." He further added that "the CJCA Research and Development Committee does i 'endorse the project that you suggested as one that is ! jextremely important. " ! ! The calendar was determined in part by the necessity j of meeting certain University of Southern California dead lines. The sample population was selected by the end of December, 1969. The latest date that the questionnaires i could be mailed was determined to be March 15, 1970, one week before Easter vacation, and the respondents were asked i to complete the survey before the beginning of the vacation period if it was at all possible. April 8, 1970 was selected as the cut-off date if 50 percent or more of the questionnaires were returned by that time. If so, no follow-up letter would be sent. If less than 50 percent of the questionnaires were returned by that date, a 87 follow-up letter would be mailed, and the cut-off date would be moved two weeks to April 22, 1970. As more than 50 percent of the questionnaires were !returned by April 8, 1970 (see Table 1), the responses were jsent to be key punched, and no further responses were I iincluded in the study. April 15 was set as the latest date i Jfor completing the computer analysis of the returns. | Tabulation and Treatment of Questionnaires | The questionnaires were recoded with a four-digit | jIBM number in order of their return so as to provide posi- I tive identification of response for purposes of computer jtabulation. Visalia Electronic Business Services keypunched the returns onto IBM data cards. The keypunching was veri fied by that organization. The program was written by Mr. Fred Danner of Visalia. The statistical design was l supervised by Mr. Howard Rafeal, also of Visalia. The pro- i jgram was run on an IBM 1130 computer. The statistical design was determined by the purpose of the study and the nature of the data gathered by the sur vey instrument. For Part I of the study (Hypotheses 1-14), the comparison of the means of paired groups of respondents, a "z" test was selected as the statistical method of 88 TABLE 1 DISTRIBUTION AND RETURN OF QUESTIONNAIRES 1 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------— — — — — Faculty Group Number Distributed Number Returned Per cent Deans of instruction 82 50 61 ; Deans of student personnel 83 52 62 j Chairmen of divisions | academic 193 108 56 Chairmen of technical occupational- divisions 12 5 77 60 Instructors divisions in academic 466 2 36 50 Instructors technical in occupational- divisions 170 100 59 Instructors of English 85 43 51 Instructors of speech 68 34 50 Instructors of history 69 32 47 Instructors of social science 85 43 51 Instructors of mathematics 82 45 55 Instructors science of physical 77 39 51 Instructors education of business 85 54 64 Instructors technical of vocational- education 85 46 54 All questionnaires 1122 62 3 55 89 determining significant differences between the means of the i two groups being compared. Statistical significance was i (determined at the .05 and .01 levels. As thrity or more i u [ responses were received for each group, large group statis tical methods were consequently used. Part II of the study (Hypotheses 15-24) presented a slightly different problem. This part of the study attempted to determine whether select groups of California i Community junior college faculty were significantly oriented to specific student-centered or intellectually-centered con cepts of general education. The scaled values for the dif ferent responses were 1.0 for strongly agree, 2.0 for agree, 3.0 for disagree, and 4.0 for strongly disagree. The mean, 2.5, was assumed to represent a neutral or uncommitted posi tion for each response; i.e., the mean of 2.5 was assumed to represent a lack of commitment to either student-centered or 'intellectually-centered concepts of general educaition. The mean of each group's response to each item was compared with the neutral mean of 2.5. If the difference between the com pared means exceeded one standard deviation, or a "z" score of 1.000, the response was determined to be significant. CHAPTER IV THE FINDINGS OF THE STUDY The problem of the study was twofold. Part I sought; to determine if significant differences in attitude toward I general education existed between paired groups of Califor nia community college faculty. Part II attempted to deter mine the degree to which individual groups of community col lege faculty were oriented toward student-centered or intel-j lectually-centered concepts of general education. J I This chapter will first report the general findings (Tables 2 and 3) as preliminary to the presentations of the findings of Part I (see Tables 4-17 in Appendix A) and ,Part II (see Tables 18-2 7 in Appendix B). Chapter V will report the significant responses in Part I and Part II for each item of the questionnaire (see Tables 28-67 in Appendix C), in the expectation that this further pre sentation will facilitate a comparative analysis of the jsignificant responses by the various faculty groups on the community college campuses. The last section of this chapter will summarize the findings of the study. j The General Findings of the Study ! The general findings of Part I of this study are presented in Table 2. This table presents the number of significant responses by hypothesis to Part A of the ques tionnaire (the goals, objectives, and purposes of general l jeducation), to Part B (the general education curriculum), i I jand to Part C (the methods and practices of general educa tion) . The total number of significant responses is tabu- i ! |lated and indicated by the table. i I Hypothesis 1 postulated that there were no signifi cant differences between the attitudes of the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel toward (1) the purposes, goals, and objectives of general educa tion, (2) the development and organization of the general education curriculum, and (3) the methods and practices of general education. This study revealed only five signifi cant attitudinal differences between the deans of instruc tion and the deans of student personnel in their responses to fifty items on the questionnaire. Table 2 reveals that these administrative officers did not disagree significantly 92 TABLE 2 SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO HYPOTHESES i THROUGH 14 Hypotheses Total A B C 1. Deans of instruction versus ' deans of student personnel 5 I I ! 2. Chairmen of academic divisions I l versus instructors in academic divisions 2 i 3. Chairmen of occupational-technical divisions versus instructors in occupational-technical divisions 6 4. Deans of instruction versus instructors in occupational- technical divisions 15 5. Deans of student personnel versus instructors in academic divisions 16 6. Instructors in academic divisions versus instructors in occupational- technical divisions 8 7. Instructors of English versus instructors of speech 1 8. instructors of history versus instructors of social science 2 93 TABLE 2— Continued Hypotheses Total A B C i 9. Instructors of mathematics versus instructors of physical science 1 0 0 1 | 10. i i i i Instructors of business education versus instructors of technical- vocational education 7 3 2 2 ii. i Instructors in large versus instructors in small institutions 5 2 2 1 12 . Instructors in urban versus instructors in rural institutions 7 3 3 1 ; 13. Instructors in new versus instructors in old institutions 7 3 1 3 14. Instructors in Northern versus instructors in Southern California 4 1 3 0 Total significant responses 86 30 37 19 94 on any item pertaining to the purposes, goals, and objec- | ; tives of general education, and they disagreed but once in ! response to those items treating the methods and practices of general education. i > Hypotheses 2 and 3 sought to determine if signifi cant differences in attitudes toward general education existed between division chairmen and the teaching faculty ! within their divisions. Only two differences were found to iexist between the chairmen of the academic divisions and the I i [instructors teaching in these divisions (Hypothesis 2), | while six differences existed between the chairmen of the j occupational-technical divisions and their faculty (Hypoth- ( iesis 3). In both cases little or no disagreement was found jwithin these divisions in attitudes toward the purposes and [practices of general education (Parts A and C of the ques- i i tionnaire). Table 2 indicates that divisional disagreement [on the development and organization of the general education curriculum does not exist at a significant level within the academic divisions on any of the items submitted to these faculty members. Significant disagreement does exist between the chairmen and instructors of the occupational- technical divisions on five of the twenty-five items com prising Part B of the questionnaire. 95 The greatest differences in attitudes are seen to exist when the deans of instruction are paired with the | instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions I I .(Hypothesis 4) and the deans of student personnel are paired i Iwith the instructors teaching in the academic divisions. Table 2 reveals that the deans of student personnel disagree with the instructors teaching in academic divisions on seven !of the ten— 70 percent— items pertaining to the goals, 'objectives, and purposes of general education; it also i jreveals that the deans of instruction disagree with the J |instructors teaching in the occupational-technical divisions I i ion six of the same ten items. The table further reveals that both groups of administrators disagree with the faculty groups they were paired on approximately 30 percent of the items on the questionnaire. The nature of these disagree ments, as will become apparent in the next section of this chapter, was generally not of a positive-negative conflict, j but usually of a mildly-strongly contrast; this type of sig nificant disagreement is called "directional" elsewhere in this paper. Hypothesis 6 reveals a total of eight significant differences in attitudes between instructors teaching in jacademic and occupational-technical divisions. Four of 96 these differences occur in the area of purposes, goals, and f objectives (Part A). Only two significant differences are seen to exist between these faculty groups in each of the other parts of the questionnaire. Very few differences in attitude exist among instructors teaching in language arts divisions (Hypoth esis 7), social science divisions (Hypothesis 8), and mathe- natics-physical science divisions (Hypothesis 9). Instruc tors in these divisions are virtually unanimous on a divi- I sional basis on all aspects of general education that were surveyed by the questionnaire. This study did not attempt to determine whether significant differences existed between any two of these divisions. Table 2 reveals that seven significant differences exist between instructors teaching business education and those teaching vocational-technical education (Hypothesis 10). 'Elsewhere in this study, these faculty are grouped together by definition as instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions. These findings show that disagreement among these groups of faculty is spread rather evenly over all three parts of the questionnaire rather than being con centrated in essentially one part. 97 When instructor attitude by type or location of institution is studied, it is seen that the type of institu tion does have some impact on attitudes. Table 2 reveals the slightly greater differences existing between urban and rural institutions (Hypothesis 12), and between new and old 1 institutions (Hypothesis 13), than between large and small institutions (Hypothesis 11), or between Northern and Southern institutions (Hypothesis 14). Table 2 does not i Ireveal any significant pattern in these disagreements. It I does show that disagreement is scattered among the items as well as among the parts of the questionnaire. General findings of Part II of this study are pre sented in Table 3. Part II seeks to determine the degree to which various groups of community college faculty are ori ented toward student-centered or intellectually-centered concepts of general education. Chapter III outlines the procedures used to determine statistical significance. This procedure can be roughly restated in the following manner: if the mean response for any one group deviated more than one standard deviation from the mean of 2.5 on a four-point scale, which was determined to be a "neutral" or noncom mitted position for each item, that response was judged to be statistically significant. Part I of this study paired r 98 TABLE 3 SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO HYPOTHESES 15 THROUGH 24 Hypotheses Total A B C 15 . Deans of instruction 6 (if 2(1) 3 1 16 . Deans of student personnel 5 0 4 1 17 . Instructors of English 6 1 3 2 18. Instructors of speech 7(2) 1(1) 3 3(1) 19. Instructors of history 4(1) 1(1) 2 1 20. Instructors of social science 5(1) 1(1) 1 3 21. Instructors of mathematics 4(1) 1(1) 2 1 22 . Instructors of physical science 3(2) 1(1) 0 2(1) 23. Instructors of business education 3(1) 1(1) 2 0 24. Instructors of technical- vocational education 6(2) 2(2) 2 2 3The number in parentheses indicates the number of intellectually-centered responses within the large total. 99 the mean response of one group to an item with the mean response of a second group to that same item. For example, jthe mean response of the deans of instruction to Item 2, jwhich was 2.870, was paired with the mean response of the deans of student personnel, which was 2.750, to the same item. In Part II of this study, the 2.870 mean response of the deans of instruction to Item 2 is paired with a 2.500 "neutral" or noncommitted mean of a four-point scale. In ;neither case was the response significant. i Table 3 presents the number os significant responses I iby hypotheses to each of the three parts of the question- . naire. As in Table 2, the total number of significant responses are computed and presented. A breakdown of these responses indicates that thirty-eight of the forty-nine I statistically significant responses are oriented toward ;student-centered concepts of general education. The eleven significant responses in the direction of intellectually- i i centered general education are indicated by parentheses in the columns for each part of the questionnaire as well as in the "total" column. A further analysis of these eleven responses in the direction of intellectually-centered concepts reveals that eight of these were in response to Item 1 (see Table 28), 100 which states that the essential purpose of general education i ) iis to give the students that core of knowledge which should I be the common possession of all students. If the responses to this item were excluded, the community college faculty groups surveyed in this study would have responded toward intellectually-centered concepts only three times. Table 3 reveals that few faculty groups are oriented toward student-centered purposes, goals, and objectives of igeneral education; only two responses are in this direction. Table 3 generally reveals that faculty commitment to student-centered concepts of general education is rather weak overall. It also indicates that no single group of community college faculty is strongly committed to student- centered concepts of general education— or, for that matter, to intellectually-centered concepts either. ; The Findings of Part I of the Study [ Part I of this study (Hypotheses 1-14) attempts to determine whether significant attitudinal differences toward general education concepts exist between groups of Califor nia community college faculty. The three facets of general education under investigation are (1) the goals, purposes, and objectives, (2) the development and organization of the 101 curriculum, and (3) the methods and practices of general education. A Null hypothesis that there is no significant j Idifference in response between the means of each of the jpaired groups of faculty was established as the basic inves tigative tool of this study; a total of fourteen such hypotheses became Part I of this study. This survey consisted of fifty items to which each (respondent was asked to respond (1) strongle agree, 1(2) agree, (3) disagree, and (4) strongly disagree. These responses were weighted and tabulated by computer to deter mine both the mean for each group and the significant differ- ! lence, if any between the paired groups on each item of the ! i [questionnaire. As the raw data compiled and printed by the computer is voluminous and bulky— and not meaningful in *itself--it is not included in this study; however, it can be [ obtained from the researcher upon request. The only find ings to be presented in this section will be those that | report significant differences between the various matched pairs of community college faculty. Table 4 reports the significant attitudinal differ ences between the deans of instruction and the deans of stu dent personnel. Although there are six possible variations in the responses of any single matched pair of faculty 102 groups, only two of these occur in the responses by the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel. i [For example, Table 4 indicates the items (Item 16) with which both groups of deans disagree— to which they responded jnegatively. When both groups do respond in the same direc- i I tion to an item, it is possible to have a significant dif ference between the responses only if one group mildly dis agrees (or agrees) with the statement while the other group I [strongly disagrees (or agrees) with the statement. This type of response is "directional" in that both groups j jrespond either positively or negatively to the statement, with the degree of difference between their responses being so great that the response is statistically significant. Four combinations of directional responses are pos sible. For example, both groups of deans may agree with a statement with either the deans of instruction or the deans iof student personnel agreeing more strongly; or, both groups of deans may disagree with a statement with either the deans of instruction or the deans of student personnel disagreeing I [more strongly. Two combinations of split response are pos- ! I sible. The deans of instruction may agree with a statement while the deans of student personnel may disagree with it; or the reverse relationship may occur. Items 26, 28, 35, 103 and 45 are examples of a split response where the deans of student personnel agree with the statement while the deans jof instruction disagree with the statement. | The level of statistical significance is indicated in parentheses following each statement. Table 4 reveals that two of the five significant differences were at the .01 level; the other three were at the .05 level of signifi cance. The level of significance will be indicated for all | jresponses throughout this chapter. i i I {Hypothesis 1 | Both groups of deans disagree with the idea that !general education programs should be organized at different ( levels for transfer and vocational-technical students, with the deans of instruction disagreeing more strongly (Item 16). Although there were no significant differences in responses I to items pertaining to the goals, purposes, and objectives pf general education (see Table 2), certain real differences exist in the responses of these deans to those items that touch on the work of the student personnel center (Items 26, 28, 35, and 45). The deans of student personnel agree that general education programs must be based on extensive studies of both students and their communities (Item 26), 104 that student personnel centers are more likely focal points for programs of general education than libraries (Item 28), that the evaluation of the general education curriculum jshould be more a student-counselor undertaking than an j administrator-facuity undertaking (item 35), and that group I therapy techniques have great value in general education (Item 45). The responses to Items 28 and 35 were signifi cant at the .01 level. j Table 4 reveals two important findings. First, few ! (significant differences do actually exist between the atti- I tudes of the deans of instruction and deans of student per sonnel toward general education; and second, the differences I jthat exist occur essentially over the role that the student personnel center might potentially play in the program of general education. It should also be noted that on a com parative basis, the deans of student personnel are more ori- lented toward student-centered concepts of general education on four items (items 26, 28, 35, and 45), while the deans of instruction are more oriented in that direction on one item (Item 16). 105 Hypothesis 2 Table 5 reports the significant differences between the chairmen of the academic divisions and the instructors teaching in these divisions. The table shows that the Jinstructors place greater emphasis on developing creativity than do their chairmen (Item 4), and that the chairmen are more opposed to the use of group therapy in general educa- ! jtion than their instructors (Item 45). I Table 5 broadly indicates that near unanimity of I I [attitude exists between the chairmen and instructors of aca demic divisions toward general education. In both instances of significant disagreement, the instructors are more ori ented toward student-centered concepts than their chairmen, but it is impossible to find any significant leaning in either direction on the basis of these limited findings. [ Hypothesis 3 Table 6 reports the significant attitudinal differ ences between chairmen of occupational-technical divisions and the instructors teaching in these divisions. All of the significant differences are directional in nature. The chairmen more strongly agree that all members of the faculty should participate in the programs of general education (Item 24) and that an interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach j (Item 25). The chairmen disagree more strongly that general education has greater value for terminal than transfer stu dents (Item 14). The instructors, on the other hand, dis- 1 ^gree more strongly than their chairmen that there is no general philosophy according to which a general education j curriculum should be constructed (Item 11), that the student personnel center is a more likely focal point for general education than the library (Item 28), and that it is more i i important that students be cognizant of the current social J i problems than that they learn the tools necessary for ana- ! : I Ilyzing them (Item 43) . i The findings reveal that some rather limited atti- i itudinal differences toward general education do exist between the chairmen and the instructors of the occupa tional-technical divisions. Only two responses (Items 24 i and 25) are at the .01 level of significance. The responses i jto the six items indicating a significant disagreement reveal that in each instance the chairmen of the divisions I !are more oriented toward student-centered concepts than i their instructors. 107 [Hypothesis 4 Table 7 reports the significant attitudinal differ- i ences toward concepts of general education between the deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in the occupa- [tional-technical divisions. Eleven of the fifteen signifi cant responses are directional rather than split in nature. The deans of instruction agree more strongly that neither the psychological-social nor the intellectual needs of the [students should be subordinated to the other (Item 10), that I !no two students should be expected to pursue an identical program of general education (Item 15), and that general education should be planned for all students regardless of their ability or achievements (Item 17). The deans of instruction disagree more strongly that general education should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the j students (Item 3), that activities that are purely recrea- i tional have slight value in the program of general education (Item 9), that general education should be intended just for the "general run" of college students (Item 13), that the exceptionally able student should be released from general education (Item 18), and that courses in the history of religion as a cultural phenomenon are inappropriate 108 for general education (Item 46). I The instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions, on the other hand, agree more strongly that reme dial education should be given an important place in general education (Item 6) and that it is more likely that general education objectives will be met in a class whose student- teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42). These instructors disagree more strongly when asked if it is more important that students be cognizant of | [the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (Item 43). Excluding Item 46 on the appropriateness of a course i in the history of religion in general education, the responses by the deans of instruction are more oriented I [toward student-centered concepts on nine of the remaining j ten items than those of the instructors in occupational- technical divisions (Items 10, 15, 17, 6, 3, 9, 13, 18, and ! 43). Five of these items (Items 10, 17, 6, 3, and 43) are significant at the .01 level. Four items (Items 2, 7, 16, and 26) indicate a split response. The instructors teaching in occupational-techni cal divisions agree while the deans of instruction disagree that the focus of a program of general education should be 109 that of introducing students to the methodology of a disci pline (Item 7), that general education should stress the iintellectual processes to a greater extent than the social i and psychological development of the student (Item 2), that general education programs at the junior college need to be i organized at two levels— one for transfer students and one for vocational-technical students (Item 16), and that unless based on extensive studies of the surrounding communities I iand student characteristics, no program of general education is likely to be overly successful (Item 26). The deans of instruction were more oriented toward student-centered con cepts of general education on three of those four items i I (Items 2, 7, and 16). Three of these four items (Items 7, 16, and 26) are significant at the .01 level. Table 7 indicates that strong attitudinal differ ences exist between the deans of instruction and instructors |teaching in occupational-technical divisions on fifteen items. Nine of these are significant at the .01 level. Table 7 also shows that the deans of instruction were more i oriented toward student-centered concepts in twelve of four teen instances of significant disagreement. The consistency of support by these instructors for intellectually-centered 110 concepts of general education when paired with the deans of instruction is itself a major finding. Hypothesis 5 Table 8 reports the significant attitudinal differ ences between the deans of student personnel and the instruc tors teaching in academic divisions. Sixteen significant differences exist between these two groups. Twelve of these significant differences are directional. The deans of student personnel agree more strongly than these instructors that the focus of a program of gen eral education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a discipline (Item 7), that neither the psychological-social nor the intellectual needs of the stu dents should be subordinated to the other (Item 10), that no two students should be expected to pursue an identical pro gram of general education (Item 15), that the role of the student personnel center in general education should be essentially that of advising the planners of the needs of the students (Item 29), that the planners of general educa tion must rely heavily on the information made available by the student personnel center (Item 31), that the academic divisions should determine how they might implement the Ill objectives of general education rather than actually deter mine these objectives (Item 33), and that it is more likely that general education objectives will be met in a project more strongly than the deans of student personnel that reme dial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education (Item 6), and that it is more ilikely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose Jratio is 75-1 (Item 42). ! The deans of student personnel disagree more strong ly than these instructors that general education should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students (Item 3), and that activities that are purely recreational have slight value for general education (Item 9). The instructors, on the other hand, disagree more strongly than the deans of student personnel with the statement that gen eral education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system (Item 8). On nine of these twelve significant differences, the deans of student personnel are more oriented toward than in a lecture oriented class (Item 41). The instructors teaching in academic divisions agree 112 student-centered concepts of general education than the instructors teaching in academic divisions (Items 10, 15, 29, I 31, 33, 41, 6, 3, and 9). The three exceptions are Items 7, j I 42, and 8. Six of the above twelve items are significant at the .01 level (Items 15, 31, 33, 6, 42, and 3). Table 8 shows that four items are split responses. The deans of student personnel agree while the instructors i disagree that the student personnel center rather than the i library should be the primary focal point of general educa tion (Item 28), and that the evaluation of the general edu cation program should be more a student-counselor than an j ladministrator-faculty undertaking (Item 35) . The instruc- i tors agree while the deans of student personnel disagree that general education should stress the intellectual pro cesses to a greater extent than the social and psychological development of the student (Item 2), and that the faculty should have a greater voice in determining the programs of s general education than anyone else (Item 27). The deans of student personnel are more oriented toward student-centered concepts on all four of these items ithan the instructors in academic divisions. Further, all four of these items are significant at the 01 level. 113 Table 8, then, indicates that on thirteen of sixteen Isignificant differences the deans of student personnel are i ] more oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. The total number of responses significant at the .01 level is ten. Six of these ten items (Items 31, 33, 42, 28, 35, and 2 7) relate specifically to roles that the deans of student personnel or the instructors do or might play in programs of general education. Table 2 previously indicated that this study reveals more significant differences between I this set of matched community college groups than between any other. i ! j Hypothesis 6 Table 9 reports the significant attitudinal differ ences toward general education between instructors teaching in academic divisions and instructors teaching in occupa tional-technical divisions. The instructors teaching in the i I |academic divisions agree more strongly that the teaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the pro gram of general education than anyone else (Item 27), and that general education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems of our time (Item 40). These instructors disagree more strongly that general 114 education should place a greater emphasis on teaching the i tnajor fields of knowledge than on furthering individual sreativeness (Item 4), that general education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system (Item 8), and that courses in the history of religion as a cultural phenomenon are inappropriate for general education (Item 46). i 1 The instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions, on the other hand, agree more strongly that reme dial education should be given an important place in general education (Item 6), and that the academic divisions should i determine how they might implement the objectives of general education rather than actually determine these objectives (Item 33). On Item 7, the instructors teaching in occupa tional-technical divisions agree while those teaching in academic divisions disagree that the focus of general educa tion should be that of introducing students to the methodol ogy of a discipline. These groups of instructors are in significant dis agreement on eight items. Excluding Item 46, which dealt with the appropriateness of a course in the history of reli gion, the seven remaining items are subject to 115 student-centered or intellectually-centered analysis. The most important finding in this comparison is that the instructors teaching in the academic divisions are more oriented toward student-centered concepts than the instruc tors teaching in the occupational-technical divisions, as evidenced by their more student-oriented responses to Items 40, 6, 4, 8, and 7. This is to say, then, that on five of seven significant disagreements between these fac- iulty groups, the instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions are more oriented toward intellectually- centered concepts of general education than the instructors teaching in the academic divisions. The two exceptions, Items 2 7 and 33, refer to the role of the "teaching fac ulty, " or "academic divisions," in general education— to which the instructors teaching in academic divisions responded strongly. These two items are also the only ones jwhich are significant at the .01 level. Hypothesis 7 Table 10 reports the single significant difference in the attitudes of instructors of English and speech toward general education. The instructors of English agree whereas the instructors of speech disagree that few, if any, parts 116 Df the student's program of general education should be pre scribed (Item 19). On this item the English instructors are more oriented toward a student-centered concept than the speech instructors. The major finding visible on Table 10 is that these two groups of instructors differ so little in their responses to the various items on general education. Hypothesis 8 j Table 11 reports the significant differences between ! [the attitudes of instructors of history and the instructors (of social science toward concepts of general education. The i instructors of history agree more strongly that general edu cation programs at the junior college need to be organized on two levels— one for transfer students and one for voca tional-technical students (Item 16). The instructors of social science, on the other hand, agree more strongly that [a problem such as finding a parking space can serve as a {learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems (Item 37). On both of these items, the instructors of social science are more oriented toward student-centered concepts than the instructors of history. Neither item was significant at the .01 level. The major finding of this hypothesis is again that very few 117 differences in attitudes toward general education exist between instructors of history and social science. Hypothesis 9 Table 12 reports the significant attitudinal differ- I ences between the instructors of mathematics and the instructors of physical science. The instructors of physi cal science disagree more strongly than the instructors of mathematics that it is more important that students be cog nizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (Item 43). In this i case, the instructors of mathematics are more oriented to a student-centered concept than the instructors of physical science. The major finding of the hypothesis is that very few differences in attitude toward general education divide the instructors of mathematics and physical science. I Hypothesis 10 Table 13 reports the significant differences between instructors of business and instructors of vocational-tech nical education toward concepts of general education. By definition these groups of instructors are joined elsewhere in this study as "instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions." Table 13 reveals six significant 118 differences between these groups of community college fac ulty. The instructors of business education agree more strongly that students must help to plan any general educa tion program that pretends to be interested in their needs (Item 22), and they disagree more strongly that general education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult (Item 13) and that the aim of general education has been achieved when it can be demon strated that the content has been perceived and remembered by the students (item 38). The instructors teaching vocational-technical educa tion, on the other hand, agree more strongly that the focus of a program of general education should be that of intro ducing students to the methodology of a discipline (Item 7). These instructors agree while those teaching business educa tion disagree that general education should stress the intellectual processes to a greater extent than the social and psychological development of the student (Item 2), and that general education should place a greater emphasis on teaching the major fields of knowledge than on furthering individual creativeness (Item 4). 119 Table 13 reveals that the instructors of business ^education are more oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education than the instructors of vocational- technical education on all six items where significant dif ferences exist. No item was significant beyond the .05 level. Hypothesis 11 i Table 14 reports the significant attitudinal differ- i i jences toward general education between instructors teaching jat large and at small institutions. Large institutions were defined in Chapter I as those with an average daily atten dance of 2500 or more, while small institutions were defined as those with an average daily attendance of 2499 or less. Five significant differences exist in the attitudes of instructors teaching at these two types of institutions. The instructors teaching at large institutions jagree more strongly that the essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (Item 1), and they disagree more strongly that the evalua tion of the general education curriculum should be more a 12 0 student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-faculty undertaking (Item 35). The instructors teaching at small institutions agree more strongly that general education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems of our time (Item 40). They disagree more strongly that general educa tion should advance mutually agreed upon societal values i i -rather than encourage the student to develop his own value J jsystem (Item 8), and that in developing the program of gen- | jeral education, the planners must rely heavily on the infor mation provided by the student personnel center (Item 31). i l i Of the five significant differences, only one I i(Item 40) is significant at the .01 level. On four of the five items, the instructors teaching at small institutions are more oriented toward student-centered concepts than the instructors teaching at large institutions. The exception :is Item 31, which deals with the role of the student person nel center. Hypothesis 12^ Table 15 reports the significant attitudinal differ ences between instructors teaching at urban and at rural institutions. A rural institution by definition is one 121 located so that no city with a population of 50,000 or more has its city limits within a twenty-five mile radius of the I l jcollege. Table 15 reports seven significant differences between instructors teaching at urban and rural institu tions. Five of the items are directional in nature and two are split responses. The instructors teaching at urban institutions agree more strongly that the essential purpose of general educa tion is to give the students that core of knowledge that should be the common possession of all students (Item 1), and that the teaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the program of general education than anyone i jelse (Item 27). The instructors at urban institutions dis agree more strongly that general education at the two-year college should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students (Item 3). i ! The instructors teaching at rural institutions, on the other hand, agree more strongly that general education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems of our time (Item 40). They disagree more strongly that the evaluation of the general education curriculum should be more a student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-faculty undertaking (Item 35). 122 The instructors teaching at urban institutions agree whereas those at rural institutions disagree that general I Education should stress the intellectual processes to a [greater extent than the social and psychological development (of the student (Item 2). The instructors teaching at rural institutions agree whereas those at urban institutions dis agree that in developing the program of general education, the planners must rely heavily on the information provided !by the student personnel center (Item 31) . I On five of these seven items, the instructors teach ing at urban institutions are more oriented toward intellec tually-oriented concepts of general education than those teaching at rural institutions (items 1, 27, 40, 2, and 31). However, the findings reveal certain inconsistencies in response by these instructors. in one instance, for example, the instructors at urban institutions agree that igeneral education should stress the intellectual processes to a greater extent than the social and psychological devel opment of the student (Item 2), but they disagree more strongly with the statement that general education should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students (Item 3). The findings of this hypothesis are consequently rather vague. 12 3 Hvpothesis 13 Table 16 reports the findings of the significant differences between instructors teaching at new and at old institutions. Seven significant differences in attitudes exist between these groups of paired instructors. The instructors teaching at new institutions agree jmore strongly that remedial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education (Item 6). These instructors disagree more strongly that general educa tion at the two-year college should focus primarily on the I intellectual growth of the students (Item 3), that the aim of general education has been achieved when it can be demon- ! strated that the content has been perceived and remembered by the students (Item 38), and that it is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems I jthan that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (Item 43). The instructors teaching at old institutions agree more strongly that the essential purpose of general educa tion is to give students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (Item 1). Further, they agree while those teaching at new institutions disagree 124 that general education programs at the junior college should be organized at two levels— one for transfer students and sne for vocational-technical students (Item 16), and that the type of achievement required of science majors should not also be required of non-science majors (Item 48). I In five of these seven instances of significant dis agreement, the instructors teaching at new institutions are more oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education than those teaching at old institutions. No dif- I ference is significant beyond the .05 level. Hypothesis 14 Table 17 reports the significant attitudinal differ ences toward general education between the instructors teaching in Northern California and the instructors teaching in Southern California. On each of the four items that are Significant, the instructors teaching in Northern California | are more oriented toward student-centered concepts than the instructors in Southern California. The instructors in Northern California agree more strongly that students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their needs (Item 22), and that unless based on extensive studies of the surrounding communities 12 5 l land student characteristics, no program of general education I is likely to be overly successful (Item 26) The instruc tors teaching in Southern California agree more strongly that the essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the com- i mon possession of all students (Item 1). The instructors from Northern California disagree more strongly that general i (education has greater value for terminal than transfer stu- Idents (Item 14) . Items 22 and 26 are significant at the .01 level. ! i ISummary of the findings of i Hypotheses 1-14 I The major findings of Part I of this study are: i i 1. Relatively few differences exist between the j attitudes of the deans of instruction and the i deans of student personnel. 2. Virtually no attitudinal differences exist ! between the chairmen of the academic divisions i and the instructors teaching in these divisions. | 3. The instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions are more oriented toward intellectually-centered concepts of general 126 education than the chairmen of these divisions, who are more oriented toward student-centered concepts. 4 The greatest number of significant attitudinal differences exist between the deans of instruc tion and the instructors teaching in occupa tional-technical divisions, and between the deans of student personnel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions. 5 . The instructors teaching in the occupational- technical divisions are consistently more ori ented toward intellectually-centered concepts of general education than the deans of instruction. 6. The instructors teaching in academic divisions are significantly more oriented toward intellec tually-centered concepts of general education than the deans of student personnel. 7. The instructors teaching in the occupational- technical divisions are more oriented toward intellectually-centered concepts of general edu cation than the instructors teaching in the aca demic divisions. 12 7 | 8. Very few attitudinal differences exist between English and speech instructors, between history i i and social science instructors, and between ! mathematics and physical science instructors. 9. Business education instructors are more oriented 1 | toward student-centered concepts of general edu cation than the vocational-technical education instructors. 10. Instructors teaching at different types of institutions exhibit only limited attitudinal I i differences toward general education. j i 11. On the items included on the survey question- J naire, the instructors teaching at small insti tutions, at rural institutions, at new institu tions, and in Northern California are somewhat more oriented toward student-centered concepts than instructors teaching at large institutions, at urban institutions, at old institutions, and in Southern California. The Findings of Part II of the Study Part II of this study (Hypotheses 15-24) attempts to determine whether specific groups of community college 128 [faculty are oriented toward student-centered or intellec tually-centered concepts of general education. The four jresponses permitted each respondent by the questionnaire | (4) strongly disagree. These responses were weighted one through four, with 2.5 being the arithmetical mean. If the mean response for any of the groups of respondents to an item on the questionnaire deviated more than one standard Ideviation from the mean of 2.5, which was determined to be a i ;"neutral" or noncommitted position for each item, the response was judged to be statistically significant. A Null hypothesis that none of the groups under investigation is oriented toward either student-centered or intellectually- centered concepts of general education was established as the working hypothesis for this part of the study. The ten 'groups of community college faculty under investigation are (1) the deans of instruction, (2) the deans of student per sonnel, (3) the instructors of English, (4) the instructors of speech, (5) the instructors of history, (6) the instruc tors of social science, (7) the instructors of mathematics, (8) the instructors of physical science, (9) the instructors of business education, and (10) the instructors of techni cal-vocational education. (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) disagree, and 12 9 j Of the fifty items included on the questionnaire, only forty are used in Part II of this study. The deleted | jitems were judged neutral in construction in that neither a i strongly agree nor strongly disagree response would neces sarily indicate an orientation toward student-centered or jintellectually-centered concepts of general education. The iitems deleted from Part II of this study are listed below by i j Jitem number: 10. Neither the psychological-social nor the intel- j lectual needs of the student should be subordi nated to the other. 1 11. There is no general philosophy according to j which a general education curriculum should be ; constructed. j 17. General education should be planned for all students regardless of their ability or achievements. 23. To properly utilize the extracurricular for general education, the school must intrude upon ! the students' complete and autonomous control of nonacademic activities. | 32. A representative curriculum committee should have the basic responsibility for developing the program of general education. | 34. The administration of the program of general education should be the responsibility of the Dean of Instruction. 46. Courses in the history of religion as a cul tural phenomenon are inappropriate for general education. 130 50. Ethnic studies should be part of the general education program of all students. Tables 18-2 7 are used to present the findings of Part II of this study (Hypotheses 15-24). Each table will report only the significant findings— i.e , those items to which the faculty group's mean response deviated more than one standard deviation from the mean of 2.5. Each table will indicate whether the response to an item reflects an jorientation toward student-centered or intellectually- I i [centered concepts of general education. t ! Hypothesis 15 Table 18 reports the significant responses by the deans of instruction. Of the six significant responses, five are oriented toward student-centered concepts. Two responses reflect a student-centered orientation by agree ment with the item. These items state that general educa- i ition should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer educa tion to form an integrated whole (Item 21), and that the surrounding community should be the starting point and the laboratory of education for citizenship (Item 44). Three responses reflect a student-centered orientation by dis agreement with the item. These items state that the focus of a program of general education should be that of 131 introducing students to the methodology of a discipline i (Item 7), that general education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult (Item 13), jand that general education has greater value for terminal than transfer students (Item 14). One response reflects an orientation toward intel- i ilectually-centered general education. This item states that the essential purpose of general education is to give stu dents that core of knowledge which should be the common pos session of all students (Item 1). Table 18 reveals that the deans of instruction are not strongly oriented to either student-centered or intel lectually-centered concepts of general education. The deans jof instruction responded significantly to but six of forty I j iitems on the questionnaire. The findings do indicate, how ever, that the deans of instruction tend to support student- i | centered concepts of general education in preference to intellectually-centered concepts. Hypothesis 16 Table 19 reports the significant responses of the deans of student personnel to student-centered and 132 intellectually-centered concepts of general education. All five responses by this group of deans reflect orientations toward student-centered concepts. Three responses agree with the item. These items state that general education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education I to form an integrated educational whole (Item 21), that an interdisciplinary approach to general education is prefer- | jable to a disciplinary approach (Item 25), and that the role of the student personnel center in developing a program of I general education should be to advise the planners of the current and immediate needs of the students (Item 29). Two i [responses reflect orientations toward student-centered con cepts by disagreement with the item. These items state that general education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts cur riculum seems to be too difficult (Item 13), and that it is not likely that many general education objectives can be met in a mathematics class (Item 47). Hypothesis 17 Table 2 0 reports the significant responses by instructors of English. All six of these responses reflect an orientation toward student-centered concepts. Four of 133 the responses agree with the item. These items state that students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their needs (Item 22), that the role of the student personnel center in developing a program of general education should be to advise the plan- i ners of the current and immediate needs of the students (Item 29), that so seemingly unimportant a problem as find ing a parking space can serve as a learning situation for iobserving and analyzing contemporary social problems I (Item 37), and that it is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42). Two of the responses by the instructors of English oriented toward student-centered concepts disagree with the statement. jThese items state that general education should advance ! mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system (Item 8), and i I that general education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems too difficult (Item 13). 134 Hypothesis 18 Table 21 reports the significant responses by the i [instructors of speech toward student-centered and intellec tually-centered concepts of general education. Five of the responses reflect an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with the item. These items state that general education should be dovetailed with voca tional or transfer education to form an integrated educa tional whole (Item 21), that an interdisciplinary approach l jto general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach (Item 25), that both the librarian and the director of audio-visual services should be active participants in planning any program of general education (Item 30), that it is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42), and that the surrounding com- j jmunity should be the starting point and the laboratory of education for citizenship (Item 44). Two of the responses by the instructors of speech reflect an orientation toward intellectually-centered con cepts of general education. The one response that reflects this orientation by agreement with the item states that the 135 essential purpose of general education is to give students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (Item 1). The second response that reflects an orientation toward intellectually-centered general educa tion disagrees with the item. This item states that it is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (Item 43). Hypothesis 19 Table 22 reports the significant responses by i instructors of history toward student-centered and intellec tually-centered concepts of general education. Three of the four responses support student-centered concepts. On one item, the instructors of history reflect student-centered concepts by agreement with the item. This item states that it is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42). Two responses reflecting student-centered concepts disagree with the statement. These items state that general education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the tradi tional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult 136 (Item 13), and that general education has greater value for terminal than for transfer students (Item 14). The one response reflecting an orientation toward an intellectually-centered concept disagrees with the item. This item states that the essential purpose of general edu cation is to give students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (Item 1). Hypothesis 2 0 Table 2 3 reports the significant responses by instructors of social science toward student-centered and intellectually-centered concepts of general education. Four of the five responses reflect student-centered concepts. All of these responses agree with the item. These items state that general education should be dovetailed with voca tional or transfer education to form an integrated educa tional whole (Item 21), that so seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking space can serve as a learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems (Item 37), that general education should seek to involve students emotionally in the social problems of our time (Item 40), and that it is more likely that general edu cation objectives can be met in a class whose 137 student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is l 75-1 (Item 42). ( The one response reflecting an intellectually- centered position agrees with the item. This item states j that the essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the com mon possession of all students (Item 1). Hypothesis 21 1 j Table 24 reports the significant responses by i i jinstructors of mathematics toward student-centered and i jintellectually-centered concepts of general education. I jThree of the four responses reveal an orientation toward student-centered concepts. Two responses reflect a student- centered orientation by agreement with the item. These items state that an interdisciplinary approach to general I leducation is preferable to a disciplinary approach | (Item 25), and that it is more likely that general education i objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42). One response reflects an orientation toward student-centered concepts by disagreement with the item; this item states that general education has greater value for terminal 138 students than it has for transfer students. i The instructors of mathematics respond to an intel lectually-centered statement but once. This item states that the essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the com- bon possession of all students (Item 1). Hypothesis 22 Table 2 5 reports the significant responses toward general education concepts by the instructors of physical |science. Two of the three significant responses are ori- jented toward student-centered concepts. One of these ! I [responses accepts the item as stated. This item states that it is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42). The second response rejects the item, which states that it is not likely that many general education objectives can be met in a mathemat ics class (Item 47). The instructors of physical science reflect an ori entation toward one intellectually-centered concept of gen eral education. They agree with the item that states that the essential purpose of general education is to give the 139 students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (item 1). I ! Hypothesis 2 3 Table 26 reports the significant responses by busi ness education instructors toward student-centered and intellectually-centered concepts of general education. Two of three responses are toward student-centered concepts; both of these disagree with the items. These items state that general education should be intended for the general I run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult (Item 13), and that general education has greater value for terminal than transfer students (Item 14). One response reflects an ori entation toward an intellectually-centered concept. This response agrees with the item, which states that the essen tial purpose of general education is to give the students I I that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (Item 1). Hypothesis 24 Table 2 7 reports the significant responses toward concepts of general education by the instructors of voca tional-technical education. Four of six responses reflect 140 orientations toward student-centered concepts. These four i responses agree with the items, which state that general (education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer I ; education to form an integrated educational whole (Item 21), that the academic divisions should determine how they might I implement the objectives of general education rather than actually determine these objectives (Item 33), that it is more likely that general education objectives can be met in |a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42), and that thesurrounding com munity should be the starting point and the laboratory of education for citizenship (Item 44). I Two responses reflect orientations toward intellec tually-centered concepts. Both of these responses indicate their orientation by agreement with the items. These items state that the essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the | common possession of all students (Item 1), and that reme dial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education (Item 6). 141 Summary of the findings of Hypotheses 15-24 The major findings of these hypotheses are several in number: 1. No group of California community college faculty is committed to intellectually-centered concepts of general education. 1 2. No group of California community college faculty is strongly committed to student-centered con cepts of general education. [ ! i 3. Of the forty items considered in Part II of thisj I study (Hypotheses 15-24), only eighteen items J elicited significant responses by the different groups of community college faculty. 4. Eight of the eleven responses reflecting an ori- i entation toward intellectually-centered concepts of general education registered agreement with Item 1, which states that the essential purpose j of general education is to give students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. 142 ! 5. Seven of the ten groups of faculty members responded with agreement to Item 42, which I j stated that it is more likely that general edu cation objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose i j ratio is 75-1. 6. Five of the ten groups of faculty disagreed with Item 13, which stated that general education J should be intended for the general run of col lege students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems too difficult. j i 7. Five of the ten groups of faculty agreed with ! Item 21, which stated that general education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer : education to form an integrated education whole. 8. Four of the ten groups of faculty disagreed with Item 14, which stated that general education has greater value for terminal than for transfer students. 9. Three of the ten groups of faculty agreed with I I Item 25, which stated that an interdisciplinary i j j approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach. 143 10. Three of the ten groups of faculty agreed with ! I Item 44, which stated that the surrounding com munity should be the starting point and the laboratory of education for citizenship. Summary of the Findings of the Study This summary will present the findings by the numer ical order of the hypotheses. Hypotheses 1-14 attempted to determine whether differences exist between and among selected groups of California community college faculty in their orientation toward (1) the goals, purposes, and objec tives of general education; (2) the development and organi zation of the general education curriculum; and (3) the methods and practices of general education. A Null hypoth esis used in this study is that there is no significant dif ference in response between the means of the following I groups: 1. The deans of instruction and the deans of stu dent personnel. 2. The chairmen of academic divisions and the instructors teaching in these divisions. 3. The chairmen of occupational-technical divi sions and instructors in these divisions. 144 4. The deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions. 5. The deans of student personnel and the instruc tors teaching in the academic divisions. 6. The instructors teaching in academic divisions and those teaching in occupational-technical divisions. 7. Instructors of English and instructors of speech. 8. Instructors of history and instructors of social science. 9. Instructors of mathematics and instructors of physical science. 10. Instructors of business education and instruc tors of vocational-technical education. 11. Instructors teaching in large institutions and those teaching in small institutions. 12. instructors teaching in urban institutions and those teaching in rural institutions. 13. instructors teaching in new institutions and those teaching in old institutions. 14. instructors teaching in Northern California and those teaching in Southern California. 145 Hypotheses 15-24 attempted to determine whether dif ferent California community college faculty populations were oriented toward either student-centered or intellectually- centered concepts of general education. A Null hypothesis used in this part of the study is that none of the following populations is oriented toward either student-centered or intellectually-centered concepts of general education (pre sented by hypothesis number): 15. Deans of instruction 16. Deans of student personnel 17. Instructors of English 18. Instructors of speech 19. Instructors of history 20. Instructors of social science i —1 CM Instructors of mathematics 22 . Instructors of physical science 23. Instructors of business education 24. Instructors of vocational-technical education Hypothesis 1. Very few actual differences exist between the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel. Those differences that do exist occur in the area of the actual or potential role of the student 146 {personnel center in the program of general education. If the differences over this role are excluded from considera tion, neither group of deans appears more oriented toward 'student-centered concepts than the other group. I j Hypothesis 2 . Almost no difference exists between I I the attitudes of the chairmen of academic divisions and instructors teaching in these divisions. Hypothesis 3. Several significant differences exist between the attitudes of the chairmen of occupational-tech nical divisions and the instructors teaching in these divi sions. In each instance of disagreement, the chairmen are more oriented toward student-centered concepts than the i instructors. Hypothesis 4 . Many significant differences (fif teen) exist between the attitudes of the deans of instruc- i jtion and the instructors teaching in the occupational-tech nical divisions. The deans of instruction are more oriented toward student-centered concepts on twelve of fourteen responses, nine of which are significant at the .01 level. On eleven items, however, the difference is one of degree as both the deans of instruction and this group of faculty agree in the direction of their response. 147 Hypothesis 5. Sixteen significant differences exist between the attitudes of the deans of student personnel and i the instructors teaching in academic divisions toward con cepts of general education. On all but four items, the ^responses differ by a matter of degree— i.e., one group will i mildly agree with the statement while the other group will strongly agree with the statement. On thirteen of the six teen items, the deans of student personnel are more oriented | jtoward student-centered concepts than the instructors teach ing in these divisions. More significant differences occur between these two groups than any other paired groups of faculty. A total of ten responses are significant at the I .01 level. Hypothesis 6. Eight significant attitudinal differ ences exist between the instructors teaching in academic divisions and the instructors teaching in occupational- |technical divisions. The instructors teaching in the occu pational-technical divisions are more oriented toward intel lectually-centered concepts of general education on five of seven items; the two exceptions refer to roles the instruc tors actually or potentially play in general education. 148 I i Hypothesis 7. Almost no significant difference exists between the attitudes of instructors of English and I instructors of speech toward general education. Hypothesis 8. Only two significant differences exist between the attitudes of the instructors of history and the instructors of social science toward concepts of general education. Hypothesis 9. Very few differences exist between the attitudes of the instructors of mathematics and the instructors of physical science toward concepts of general education. Hypothesis 10. On all six significant attitudinal differences between the instructors of business education and the instructors of vocational-technical education, the business education instructors are more oriented toward jstudent-centered concepts. Hypothesis 11. On four of the five significant dif ferences between the instructors teaching at large and small institutions, the instructors teaching at small institutions are more oriented toward student-centered concepts of gen eral education. 149 Hypothesis 12. On five of seven significant differ ences between the attitudes of instructors teaching at urban ! jand rural institutions, the instructors teaching at rural i institutions are more oriented toward student-centered con cepts of general education. Hypothesis 13. On five of seven significant differ ences between the attitudes of instructors teaching at new and old institutions, the instructors teaching at new insti tutions are more oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. Hypothesis 14. On all four significant attitudinal differences between the instructors teaching in Northern and Southern California, the instructors teaching in Northern California are more oriented toward student-centered con cepts of general education. Hypothesis 15. On five of the six significant responses, the deans of instruction are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. Hypothesis 16■ On all five significant responses, the deans of student personnel are oriented toward student- centered concepts of general education. 150 i ! Hypothesis 17. On all six significant responses, the instructors of English are oriented toward student- centered concepts of general education. | Hypothesis 18. On five of seven significant jresponses, the instructors of speech are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. Hypothesis 19. On three of four significant i jresponses, the instructors of history are oriented toward I 'student-centered concepts of general education. I j Hypothesis 20. On four of five significant responses, the instructors of social science are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. Hypothesis 21. On three of four significant I responses, the instructors of mathematics are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. Hypothesis 22. On two of three significant responses, the instructors of physical science are oriented toward intellectually-centered concepts of general education. 151 i ! Hypothesis 23. On two of three significant responses, the instructors of business education are ori ented toward intellectually-centered concepts of general ! jeducation. Hypothesis 24. On four of six significant responses the instructors of vocational-technical education are ori- ! ented toward student-centered concepts of general education. | The findings for Hypotheses 15-24 indicate that no I I I Sgroup of California community college faculty is strongly I committed to either student-centered or intellectually- centered general education. This study does indicate, how- ! lever, that if forced to choose between one or the other, selected groups of faculty are somewhat inclined toward student-centered concepts. I CHAPTER V ITEM REVIEW OF THE FINDINGS This chapter reports the significant responses to each item on the survey questionnaire. This item by item jreview of the findings thus seeks to provide another basis i for analyzing the findings, as the presentation of the sig- I j nificant responses by item will enable the student of gen eral education at the community college level to understand better those concepts that are both supported and rejected !by community college faculties. Tables 28-36 report the significant responses of Part A of the questionnaire which specifically treats the 'goals, purposes, and objectives of general education. ! Tables 37-55 report the findings of Part B of the question naire on the organization and administration of the general education curriculum. Tables 56-66 report the findings of Part C on the methods and practices of general education. Table 67 lists all items which failed to elicit any signifi cant response. 152 153 Part A of the Instrument; The Goals. Purposes, and Objectives of General Education ! Table 28 reports the significant responses to Item 1: "The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students." The only community col lege faculty groups that did not significantly agree with !this statement are the deans of student personnel and the i 1 instructors of English, yet their agreement with this state ment was strong enough that they did not significantly dis agree with the deans of instruction and the instructors of {speech. Institutional differences exist on this item as I j instructors teaching at large, urban, old, and Southern jcalifornia institutions more strongly agree while those | Reaching at small, rural, new, and Northern California i jinstitutions less strongly agree. This finding indicates a j nearly "overwhelming" belief in the idea that general educa tion should provide a common basis of understanding and knowledge among all people. Table 29 reports the significant responses to Item 8: "General education should stress the intellectual processes to a greater extent than the social and 154 ^psychological development of the student." No single fac ulty group supports this statement significantly, but four pairs of matched faculty groups do show attitudinal differ ences between the means of their responses. Both the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel disagree with this emphasis on the intellectual processes while the instructors teaching in both the academic and occupational- technical divisions agree with it. The instructors teaching vocational-technical courses agree with this statement while those teaching business courses do not. Table 30 reports the significant responses to Item 3: "General education at the two-year college should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students because they should already have acquired desirable atti tudes toward citizenship, mental health, family life, etc." 'While all groups of community college faculty disagree with 'this statement, the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel do so much more strongly than the instruc tors teaching in academic and occupational-technical divi sions . Similarly instructors teaching in rural and new institutions disagree more strongly than those in urban and old institutions. 155 Table 31 reports the significant responses to Item 4: "General education should place a greater emphasis pn teaching the major fields of knowledge than on furthering I individual creativeness." No faculty group responds signif icantly to this item, and all but one faculty group reject [ the statement. The wording of the item does not permit an analysis of the response by the instructors teaching in vocational-technical areas so as to determine whether they i !are rejecting "creativeness" or elevating the "teaching of the major fields of knowledge." The instructors teaching in academic divisions reject this statement more strongly than their chairmen or the instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions. Table 32 reports the significant responses to Item 6: "Remedial education in basic skills should be given jan important place in general education." Agreement with |this item indicates an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education. All groups of community college faculty agree with this item to one degree or another, but only the instructors of vocational-technical courses agree significantly with the statement. All instructors agree to this statement more strongly than the community college administrators who were surveyed. The instructors teaching 156 in vocational-technical courses agree with this statement more strongly than the instructors teaching in academic divisions. Table 33 reports the significant responses to Item 7: "The focus of a program of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a dis cipline." The findings indicate that the deans of instruc tion strongly disagree with this emphasis, that both the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel dis agree much more strongly than the community college instruc tors, and that the instructors teaching in academic divi- i isions disagree with the statement while those teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree. Table 34 reports the significant responses to Item 8: "General education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to |develop his own value system." While all groups of Califor nia community college faculty reject this concept, only the instructors of English do so significantly. The findings indicate that the instructors in academic divisions reject this concept more strongly than the deans of instruction, that these instructors reject this concept more strongly than the instructors in occupational-technical divisions, 157 and that instructors in small institutions disagree with this concept more strongly than instructors in large insti- i jtutions. Table 35 reports the significant responses to jltem 9: "Activities that are purely recreational for stu- i dents have slight value for the realization of general edu cation goals " All faculty groups reject this statement, but none do so significantly. Both the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel disagree with this state ment more strongly than the instructors teaching in academic and occupational-technical divisions. Table 36 reports the significant responses to Item 10: "Neither the psychological-social nor the intel lectual needs of the student should be subordinated to the other." This table shows that the deans of instruction | and the deans of student personnel agree with this statement jmore strongly than the instructors teaching in academic and occupational-technical divisions. Summary of Part A of the survey Only Item 1 elicited a wide significant response from the groups surveyed, and it proved to be the most important single item on this part of the questionnaire. 158 The response to that item indicates that the most strongly I held attitude toward general education is that general edu- ! Ication should impart a certain core of knowledge that should be the common possession of all students. The deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel consistently rejected all emphasis on the intellectual processes more strongly than the groups with which they were paired. The : instructors of occupational-technical divisions and — more specifically--the instructors teaching vocational-technical (rather than business) education courses were consistently the strongest supporters of the intellectual processes of any group surveyed. For example, they agreed more strongly that the social and psychological development of the student should be subordinated to the intellectual processes, that creativity should be subordinated to the acquisition of knowledge, and that the focus of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a disci pline; and, further, they disagree less strongly that gen eral education should encourage students to develop their own value system. 159 i ! Part B of the Instrument: The Organization and Administration of the General Education Curriculum i | Table 37 reports the significant responses to Item 11: "There is no general philosophy according to which a general education curriculum should be constructed." While all groups of community college faculty reject this statement, the only significant difference between paired groups of faculty exist between the chairmen and the instruc- i itors of occupational-technical divisions, the latter dis- I agreeing more strongly. Table 38 reports the significant responses to I iltem 13: "General education should be intended for the gen eral run of college students for whom the traditional lib eral arts curriculum seems to be too difficult " All groups jof faculty disagree with this statement, with the responses of the deans of instruction, the deans of student personnel, j and the instructors of English, history, and business educa tion being significant. The deans of instruction disagree more strongly than the instructors of occupational-technical divisions, and the instructors of business education dis agree more strongly than the instructors of vocational- technical education. 160 Table 39 reports the significant responses to Item 14: "General education has greater value for terminal jthan transfer students." Instructors of history, mathemat ics, and business education significantly disagree with this statement, as do the deans of instruction. The chairmen of occupational-technical divisions disagree more strongly with this item than their instructors, and the instructors in Northern California disagree more s trongly than those in J Isouthern California. i i I j Table 40 reports the significant responses to j litem 15: "No two students should be expected to pursue an identical program of general education." All groups do agree with this statement, but the only significant differ ences between paired groups show that the deans of instruc tion and student personnel agree more strongly than the instructors of academic and occupational-technical divisions. Table 41 reports the significant responses to Item 16: "General education programs at the junior college need to be organized at two levels— one for transfer stu- ! dents and one for vocational-technical students." The important finding of this item is that the instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree while 161 the deans of instruction disagree with this statement. The i instructors of social science neither accept nor reject the statement while those teaching history reject the idea. The deans of instruction disagree with this concept more strongly than the deans of student personnel. Table 42 reports the significant responses to Item 17: "General education should be planned for all stu dents regardless of their ability or achievements." The I Ideans of instruction agree with this statement more strongly ! [than the instructors teaching in occupational technical divi sions. All groups of faculty do voice acceptance of this concept but not at a significant level. Table 43 reports the significant responses to Item 18: "The exceptionally able student should be released from general education courses to pursue independent study." The deans of instruction disagree with this statement more strongly than the instructors in occupational-technical divisions. No group of faculty agrees with this item. Table 44 reports the significant responses to Item 19: "Few, if any, parts of the student's program of general education should be prescribed." The instructors of English agree with this item more strongly than the instruc tors of speech. 162 Table 45 reports the significant responses to Item 21: "General education should be dovetailed with voca tional or transfer education to form an integrated educa tional whole." The deans of instruction, deans of student personnel, and the instructors of speech, social science, and vocational-technical education agree with this statement reflecting a student-centered orientation. Table 46 reports the significant responses to Item 22: "Students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their needs." The instructors of English agree with this statement, while the instructors of business education and those in Northern California agree more strongly than do instructors of voca tional-technical courses and those in Southern California. Table 47 reports the significant responses to jltem 24: "All members of the faculty should participate in the program of general education." The chairmen of the occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement more strongly than the instructors teaching in these divi sions . Table 48 reports the significant responses to Item 25: "An interdisciplinary approach to general educa tion is preferable to a disciplinary approach." Four 163 Jsignificant responses occur to this item. The three faculty groups agreeing with this item are the deans of student per- j jsonnel, the instructors of speech, and the instructors of jmethematics. The chairmen of occupational-technical divi- i Is ions agree with the statement more strongly than the i instructors teaching in these divisions. A positive response indicates an orientation toward student-centered [general education. I i Table 49 reports the significant responses to I i jltem 26: "Unless based on extensive studies of the sur rounding communities and student characteristics, no program of general education is likely to be overly successful." It ! !is significant that the deans of student personnel agree with this item while the deans of instruction disagree, the latter reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- jcentered concepts by this response. The instructors teach ing in occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement while the deans of instruction disagree with it. However, instructors in both Northern and Southern Califor nia agree with the item, but those teaching in Northern California agree more strongly. Table 50 reports the significant responses to Item 27: "The teaching faculty should have a greater voice 164 in determining the program of general education than anyone else." Instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this statement while the deans of student personnel do not, the latter being the only faculty group to reject (although not significantly) this concept. The instructors 1 teaching in academic divisions and in urban institutions agree with this item more strongly than those teaching in occupational-technical divisions and in rural institutions. I Agreement with this statement indicates an orientation I [toward student-centered general education. I ! Table 51 reports the significant responses to Item 28: "The student personnel center rather than the library should be the primary unit around which the program of general education is constructed." It is noteworthy that no single group of faculty responds significantly to this item. Three significant responses do exist between the mean iresponses of paired groups. The deans of instruction dis agree with this item while the deans of student personnel agree. The instructors teaching in academic divisions dis agree with it more strongly than their chairmen, and the instructors teaching in academic divisions disagree with it while the deans of student personnel agree. The deans of student personnel were the only faculty group to even 165 mildly approve this statement, approval being in the direc tion of student-centered general education. Table 52 reports the significant responses to Item 29: "The role of the student personnel center in developing a program of general education should be to advise the planners of the current and immediate needs of the students." This item is the only one of several per- itaining to actual or potential roles of the student person nel center that the deans of student personnel significantly ! approve. The instructors of English as a group similarly approve this role for the student personnel center. Although both the instructors teaching in academic divisions and the deans of student personnel agree with this item, the deans agree more strongly. Table 5 3 reports the significant responses to |Item 31: "In developing the program of general education, I the planners must rely heavily on the information provided by the student personnel center." The deans of student per sonnel agree with this statement more strongly than the instructors teaching in academic divisions, and the instruc tors teaching in both small and rural institutions agree more strongly than those teaching in large and urban institutions. 166 Table 54 reports the significant responses to I Item 33: "The academic divisions should determine how they might implement the objectives of general education rather than actually determine these objectives." The only faculty group to agree significantly with this statement are the instructors teaching vocational-technical education courses. The deans of student personnel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this statement, with the deans agreeing more strongly. The instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement more strongly than those teaching in academic divisions. Table 55 reports the significant responses to Item 35: "The evaluation of the general education curricu lum should be more a student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-facuity undertaking." No single group of com munity college faculty agrees or disagrees significantly with this statement. Four significant differences do occur, however, between the means of paired groups of faculty. The deans of student personnel agree with this statement while the deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in academic divisions disagree with it. The instructors teaching in both large and urban institutions disagree with 167 this item more strongly than the instructors teaching in i small and rural institutions. 1 I Summary of Part B of the survey Items 13 and 14 elicited the greatest number of sig nificant responses. It is significant that the deans of instruction and student personnel, and the instructors of English, history, and business education reject the idea that general education should be intended for the general run of college students (Item 13). The deans of instruction and the instructors of history, mathematics, and business education reject the notion that general education has greater value for terminal than transfer students (Item 15). These strong responses by a sizable block of California com munity college faculty indicate a high degree of consistency with the responses to Item 1, which emphasizes that general |education seeks to impart a core of knowledge that should be the common possession of all students. A large block of faculty also believe that general education should be dovetailed with other education programs so as to create an integrated educational whole (Item 21). The deans of instruction and student personnel, and the instructors of speech, social science, and 168 vocational-technical education strongly support this student-centered concept. However, the major question aris- ! jing from this item is not "should" but "how." This question i is unanswered by this study, but one possibility for inte gration lies in an interdisciplinary approach to general j education (Item 25), which is supported by the deans of stu dent personnel, and the instructors of speech and mathe matics . ! On Part B of the questionnaire, six items (Items 12, 20, 2 3, 30, 32, and 34) fail to elicit significant responses from the various respondents. Six items (Items 11, 15, 17, 18, 19, and 24) receive but one or two significant responses, I I Sand seven items (Items 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, and 33) receive three significant responses apiece. Nineteen of the twenty-five items on this part of the questionnaire receive three or fewer responses from the different groups of facul ty or paired groups of faculty. One series of items (Items 28, 29, and 31) deals with the actual or potential role of the deans of student personnel and the student personnel center in organizing and developing the program of general education. While signifi cant differences appear between the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel when their responses are 169 paired, the deans of student personnel as a group accept I only the more limiting role of advising the planners of the i ^current and immediate needs of the students (Item 29). Of interest is the response by the chairmen and the instructors of the occupational-technical divisions to the idea that the i student personnel center rather than the library should be the primary unit around which the program of general educa tion is constructed (item 28). Both reject the concept, the i jinstructors disagreeing more strongly. The question arises as to how well these instructors know their students, the library, and the student personnel center. Part C of the Instrument; The Methods and Practices of General Education Table 56 reports the significant responses to Item 37: "So seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking space can serve as a learning situation for observ ing and analyzing contemporary social problems." Both the instructors of English and social science agree signifi cantly with this statement, and the instructors of social science agree with this item more strongly than the instruc tors of history. 170 Table 57 reports the significant responses to i I Item 38: "The aim of general education has been achieved when it can be demonstrated that the content has been per ceived and remembered by the students." The instructors teaching at large and new institutions disagree with this statement more strongly than instructors teaching at small and old institutions. Table 58 reports the significant responses to Item 40: "General education should seek to involve the stu dents emotionally in the social problems of our time." The instructors teaching in academic divisions, and small and rural institutions agree with this item more strongly than instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions and at large and urban institutions. Social science instructors agree with this statement. Table 59 reports the significant responses to Item 41: "It is more likely that general education objec tives will be met in a project oriented class than in a lec ture oriented class." Only one significant response is recorded for this item. While the deans of student person nel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this statement, the deans of student personnel agree more strongly. 171 Table 60 reports the significant responses to i Item 42: "it is more likely that general education objec- i Itives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is i 1>5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1.!' The only groups of faculty that do not agree with this statement are the deans cf instruction, the deans of student personnel, and the instructors of business education. It is noteworthy that the instructors teaching in both the occupational-technical and academic divisions agree with this statement more jstrongly than the deans of instruction and student personnel. This item elicits nine significant responses, more than any ether item than the first (Item 1). i Table 61 reports the significant responses to Item 43: "It is more important that students by cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them." No group of community college faculty responds positively— i.e., in a student- centered position— on this item. The instructors of speech are the only group to disagree significantly with this statement. Four significant differences exist between the means of paired groups of faculty. The instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement more strongly than their chairmen or the deans of 172 instruction. The instructors of physical science disagree I with it more strongly than the instructors of mathematics, and the instructors teaching at rural institutions disagree more strongly than those teaching at urban institutions. Table 62 reports the significant responses to Item 44: "The surrounding community should be the starting point and the laboratory of education for citizenship." The three faculty groups that agree with this item are the deans of instruction, the instructors of speech, and the instruc tors of vocational-technical education. On a comparative basis, the instructors of vocational-technical education agree with this statement more strongly than the instructors of business education. Table 63 reports the significant responses to Item 45: "The techniques of group therapy have great value in the general education curriculum." The only faculty group to agree with this statement (although not signifi cantly) are the deans of student personnel, who agree while the deans of instruction disagree. The chairmen of the aca demic divisions disagree with this statement more strongly than the instructors teaching in these divisions. Table 64 reports the significant responses to Item 46: "Courses in the history of religion as a cultural 173 phenomenon are inappropriate for general education." No i faculty group disagrees significantly with this statement. However, the instructors teaching in the academic divisions and the deans of instruction disagree more strongly than the instructors teaching in the occupational-technical divi sions . Table 65 reports the significant responses to Item 47: "It is not likely that many general education objectives can be met in a mathematics class." Both the deans of student personnel and the instructors of physical science disagree with this statement. Although the instruc tors of mathematics likewise disagree, their response is not statistically significant. Table 66 reports the significant responses to Item 48: "The type of achievement required of science majors should not also be required of non-science majors." lit is noteworthy that neither instructors of mathematics nor physical science agree significantly with this item. Instructors teaching at old institutions do agree with the statement, while those teaching at new institutions disagree with it. On this item a positive response indicates an ori entation toward student-centered general education, but no 174 group of community college faculty responds significantly in I I ithis direction. I | | Summary of Part C of the survey Item 42 on class size receives the greatest number of statistically significant responses, reflecting very real faculty concern about the impact of class size on general education programs. All segments of the teaching faculty with the exception of the instructors of business education agree significantly to this item. It is noteworthy that neither the deans of instruction nor the deans of student personnel agree as strongly as the teaching faculty on this matter. It is interesting that no group of faculty agrees with the statement that it is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they !learn the tools necessary for analyzing them. The five sig nificant responses to this item (Item 43) reflect an orien tation toward intellectually-centered concepts of general education. Item 44, which proposes that the surrounding community should be the focal point of education for citi zenship, receives significant responses from the deans of instruction, and the instructors of speech and 175 vocational-technical education— but not from instructors of I social science. Item 40 on involving students emotionally in the social problems of our time elicits four significant responses— one from the instructors of social science and three between paired groups of faculty. Six items (Items 38, 41, 45, 46, 47, and 48) receive but one or two significant responses, four items (Items 36, 39, 49, and 50) receive no significant responses, and one item (Item 37) receives one significant response. Eleven of the fifteen items on this part of the questionnaire elicit three or less significant responses from the various seg ments of the California community college faculty groups surveyed in this study. The findings of this part of the survey indicate that very few significant responses either in support or rejection of selected methods and practices of general edu cation occur when groups of faculty are queried about them. The responses to these items (Items 36-50) reveal that the faculty groups are not strongly oriented to student-centered concepts of general education and even less oriented to intellectually-centered concepts and practices. 176 Items Receiving No Significant Responses j | Table 67 reports all items which do not elicit sig- I nificant responses from either the single groups of faculty or the paired groups of faculty. Of the eleven items fail ing to receive statistically significant responses, one item (Item 5) is from Part A of the questionnaire, six items (Items 12, 2 0, 2 3, 30, 32, and 34) are from Part B, and four items (Items 36, 39, 49, and 50) are from Part C. A review of these items reveals that several are noncontroversial in nature and consequently not likely to elicit strong responses from any group of faculty. Four items, however, are "controversial." Item 5 states that the aims of general education and personal adjustment are the same. Item 2 3 suggests that the school should intrude upon the student's control of his nonacademic activities. 'item 39 states that the general education goals should be implemented in transfer courses even if this means that the instructor will be unable to cover all the material he thinks is important. Item 36 states that general education is best served by the instructor who is as concerned with methodology as with content. 177 It is noteworthy that no group of faculty members i ;feels strongly enough about these items for their responses to be statistically significant. It is equally noteworthy that matched pairs of faculty groups do not significantly disagree between themselves on these items. Summary of Significant Responses by Item The significant findings from the responses to I Part A of the questionnaire on the goals, purposes, and objectives of general education are: 1. The most strongly held attitude as measured by the number of significant responses by individ ual groups of faculty is the concept that the essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the possession of all students ! (Item 1). 2. The deans of instruction and the deans of stu dent personnel do not significantly disagree on the goals, purposes, and objectives of general education. 3. The deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel consistently reject more 178 strongly than the groups with which they are paired all emphasis on the intellectual pro cesses . 4. The instructors teaching in occupational-techni cal divisions— and more specifically, the instructors of vocational-technical education— are consistently the strongest supporters of intellectually-centered concepts of general edu cation . The significant responses to Part B of the question naire on the organization and administration of the general education curriculum may be summarized as follows: 1. The deans of instruction, the deans of student personnel, the instructors of English, history, and business education reject the idea that gen eral education should be intended for the gen- ! eral run of college students for whom the tradi- i tional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult (Item 13). 2. The deans of instruction and the instructors of history, mathematics, and business education reject the idea that general education has 179 greater value for terminal than transfer stu dents (Item 14)• 3. The deans of instruction and student personnel, and the instructors of speech, social science, and vocational-technical education support the idea that general education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole (Item 21). 4. The deans of student personnel, and the instruc tors of speech and mathematics believe that an interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach. 5. The deans of student personnel as a group accept significantly only the role of advising the planners (of programs of general education) of the current and immediate needs of the students (Item 29). 6. Only six of the twenty-five items on this part of the questionnaire received more than three significant responses. 180 The significant findings from the responses to Part C of the questionnaire are: | 1. All groups of the teaching faculty with the I I exception of the instructors of business educa tion agree significantly that it is more likely i that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42). I 2. While five significant responses between paired groups of instructors disagree with the state ment that it is more important that the students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyz ing them (item 43), only the instructors of speech significantly disagree with the item. 3. The deans of instruction, and the instructors of | speech and vocational-technical education agree that the surrounding community should be the focal point and the laboratory of education for citizenship (Item 44). 4. Eleven of the fifteen items on the methods and practices of general education elicit three or less significant responses. ! CHAPTER VI i i SUMMARY OF WRITTEN COMMENTS j Between each item and at the conclusion of the survey instrument, space was provided for the respondents to write whatever comments they chose. As written commen tary was neither solicited nor prohibited, the respondents' written notes, comments, and suggestions were purely volun tary contributions of their own. Eighty-eight of the 622 respondents contributed written comments, which are grouped in this chapter under the following categories: 1. Comments on goals, purposes, and objectives 2. Comments on administration and organization of I ! the curriculum i l 3. Comments on the methods and practices 4. Comments on the survey instrument 5. Miscellaneous comments 181 I 182 Comments on Goals, Purposes, and Objectives: Part A of Instrument ! Sixteen of the respondents wrote comments on this part of the questionnaire. The item that stated that gen eral education should place a great emphasis on teaching the major fields of knowledge than on furthering individual cre ativeness (Item 4) drew five comments. One respondent strongly agreed but further stated that creativity should jnot be squelched. Two others thought it was "extremely I jloaded." Another simply wrote "poor question," and the fifth respondent wrote that it was a "false division as obviously knowledge underlies creativity." Five comments were also received on that item that stated that the aims of general education and personal adjustment are the same (Item 5). One respondent asked "The unexamined life is not worth living?" Another suggested I ithat the reader should look at Eric Fromm's The Sane Society. The third respondent desired the substitution of the word "realization" for'Adjustment. " The fourth comment stated that the two things were not the same, and the fifth responded "yes; and why have you repeatedly tried to sep arate them?" 183 Other comments on this section were scattered. In response to the item that stated that general education should stress the intellectual processes to a greater extent than the social and psychological development of the student (Item 2), one respondent would agree "if you are saying that reading, writing, and mathematics are intellectual pro cesses. " Another respondent thought that Item 8 on general education advancing societal values was the "key" question. Another thought Item 8 was "loaded," and still one other said that general education should advance both societal and personal values. The lengthiest comment on this item stated "his own value system based on knowledge is the aim. If you mean 1 just what does he enjoy, ' that is not a value system— in fact is not a system." On the item that stated that remedial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education (Item 6), one respondent stated "not as remedial courses!" Item 9 on "purely recreational activities" both ered two respondents. Item 10 on subordinating neither the psychological nor the intellectual needs of the students elicited from one respondent the comment that the two are inseparable and subordination is impossible. 184 | ' The comments on Part A of the questionnaire for the most part attempted to pin down what the respondent felt j were the "loose ends" of the statements. With the exception! of the five comments on both Item 4 and Item 5, the other written comments were scattered over all questions in this part of the instrument. I I I Comments on Organization and Administration of the General Education Curriculum; Part B of Instrument Forty of the respondents replied with written com ments on this part of the survey instrument. The greatest response was to the item that stated that the evaluation of the general education curriculum should be more a student- j Icounselor undertaking than an administrator-faculty under taking (Item 35). The substance of these comments was the ! jsame: that the evaluation of the program should include the students but not necessarily the counselors. Four respon- I jdents explicitly rejected counselor participation in the (evaluation. In a similar vein, the four respondents who ! commented on the statement that the teaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the program of general education than anyone else (Item 27) all added the word "students" to the statement. 185 The statement that the student personnel center t rather than the library should be the primary unit around I 1 jvhich the program of general education is constructed (Item 28) elicited eight comments, all of which were unfa vorable to the counseling function. Different respondents added that the program should be constructed around "stu dents, " "the instructional program," or "split 50-50." One respondent stated "You must be a counselor!" Four items (Items 16, 18, 20, and 32) were the sub jects of six comments. The statement that general education should be organized at two levels, one for transfer and one for vocational-technical students (Item 16), elicited such comments as these: "General education should be built around the individual," "many levels rather than two levels," "why is one needed for vo/tech students?" and "aren't there many other possible arrangements." The state ment that the exceptionally able student should be released from general education courses to pursue independent study (Item 18) received comments such as "loaded," "this assumes that general education is courses," "independent study is fine but not at the expense of general education," "not always and not automatically," and "how one defines 'excep tionally' able is important." The statement that the 186 counselor should only recommend which general education I bourses best satisfy each student's individual needs i I j(Item 20) elicited comments such as "ideally, I agree, " "counselors recommend easiest courses possible for slow stu dents, " "could there be others who might assume this func- ! tion," and "most have proven their ability to function effectively." The statement that a representative curricu lum committee should have the basic responsibility for de veloping the program of teneral education (Item 32) was highly commended by those who commented. Several respon dents added that students must be included on any such com mittee . A variety of written comments appeared on most of the questions in this part of the instrument. One respon dent wrote in response to the term, "teaching faculty," that "this is administrator talk— 'faculty' means teachers." The statement that the school must intrude upon the students' complete and autonomous control of nonacademic activities (Item 23) was answered by one respondent that "they do now." Several respondents indicated their objection to the word "intrude" by circling the word or writing "loaded" above it. Similarly, several respondents disliked the use of the word "pretends" in the statement that students must help to plan 187 jany general education program that pretends to be interested i ;in their needs (Item 22). One respondent circled the entire statement that general education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated edu cational whole (Item 21) and wrote "yes!" in the margin. i Two others did not like this statement because it combined both "vocational" and "transfer" education in one item. The statement that no two students should be expect ed to pursue an identical program of general education (Item 15) elicited comments such as "impossible to have this many programs," "ideally, I agree," and "surely, two might.” The statement that the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult for many students (Item 13) brought responses such as "liberal arts courses in the main are irrelevant to large numbers of students," and "I am unsure of the difference between liberal arts and general education." In response to the statement that the most desirable program of general education is one that offers the greatest alternative of courses (Item 12), one person asked, "Do you really mean student needs for general educa tion differ, therefore options should differ?" The state ment that an interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach (Item 25) was 188 I i answered by one respondent with "both may have value, both may be abused." Another person thought this was the most j important question in the instrument. To the item that all I I members of the faculty should participate in the program of general education (Item 24), one person replied "not if theyj are incapable." 1 The written comments on Part B of the questionnaire ( are difficult to assess. With the exception of the written comments on Items 35, 28, 16, 18, 2 0, and 32, they were rather evenly distributed among the remaining items. The following observations, however, can be made: (1) the writ ten comments often emphasized the belief that students ishould have greater opportunity to participate in the plan- | Ining and evaluation of programs of general education; j(2) counselors were sometimes bitterly attacked or ridiculed ] 'for their ineffectiveness or incompetence; (3) several items iwere attacked for being "loaded" or including emotionally- I (tinged words (Items 22 and 23); (4) several items were ques tioned because they contained two different components (Items 21, 26, and 30); and (5) items that disallowed excep- I Itions by the use of the words "no" and "must" were criti- jcized (Items 15 and 22). One final written comment needs to be recorded. Five respondents had never heard of "student 189 personnel centers" and stated they could not properly respond to the items treating these centers. I 1 ! Comments on the Methods and Practices | of General Education: j Part C of Instrument i Thirty-two of the respondents added written comments to Part C of the questionnaire. The statement that ethnic studies should be part of the general education program of jail students elicited eight comments. Several respondents i simply wrote "yes!" but others qualified their responses with comments as "should be integrated in all courses" and "if regular courses are properly rewritten to include accounts of racial topics." One person stated that ethnic studies need not imply "any special courses. " Most written comments on this item voiced qualified support for the statement. 1 Three items (Items 39, 40, and 43) received six com- ! [nents apiece. The statement that general education goals should be implemented in transfer courses even if this means i that the instructor will be unable to cover all the materi als he thinks are important (Item 39) raised comments such as "Is this to be enforced?" and "this should not be a dilemma." Most of the comments on this item were similar to v 190 "if the content does not correlate with general education, I !the course needs to be examined." The statement that gen- 1 eral education should seek to involve the student emotion ally in the social problems of our time (Item 40) produced jcomments such as "substitute reason for emotion," "intelli gently rather than emotionally," "define 'emotion,'" and "what are the implications of this?" The statement that it jis more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (Item 43) elicited comments such as "both are important," "equally," "an arbitrary item," and "if they learn the tools, how can they miss being cognizant of them?" The statement that it is more likely that general education objectives will be met in a project oriented class than in a lecture oriented class (Item 41) led three respon dents to note that this very much depended on the teacher. iThe same type of response was made four times to the state ment that it is more likely that general education objec tives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. One respondent noted that there was no "proof" to support either contention. The remaining items received random comments from the respondents. Several of these should be noted. The 191 statement that so seemingly unimportant a problem as finding I a parking space can serve as a learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems (Item 37) drew the comment, "for a junior high school teacher." The statement that the techniques of group therapy have great value in the general education curriculum (Item 45) elicited the response, "all students aren't sick!" One respondent asked whether "discussion groups" might be a substitute for "group therapy." Another respondent thought that the aim of general education has been achieved when it can be demonstrated that the content has been "found rele vant and useful" rather than perceived and remembered (Item 38) . The statement that the type of achievement required of science majors should not also be required of non-science majors (Item 48) was agreed to by several respondents. Two written comments on this item were "some of that achievement should not be required of science majors" and "I agree only because I know how we teach most math classes." The written comments on this part of the survey instrument differed somewhat from those on the previous section. No item, for example, was found to be "loaded" but 192 several were thought to be "arbitrary." In general, the items in this section were either amplified by the written comments or criticized for being too broad and all-inclusive in scope. Comments on the Survey Instrument Thirty-one respondents commented on aspects of the survey instrument itself. The nine categories of comments I ^determined by the researcher were: (1) general education was not defined, (2) many questions were too general, broad, or all-inclusive, (3) questions too often overlapped, (4) some questions were "loaded," (5) there was too much "educationese" or education jargon, (6) no "undecided" col umn was provided, (7) questions were of an "either-or" nature, (8) the instrument was slanted toward a psychologi cal-social orientation, and (9) some questions involved an jemotional response. Eight respondents felt that general education should have been defined. The usual comment stated that it would "be easier" to respond if the respondent knew what defini tion the surveyor had in mind. Several respondents indi cated that the definition itself might help to clarify the purposes of the survey. One respondent noted that he was Iglad the director of the study did not attempt to define general education because "it can only be described." Five respondents felt that many of the questions were too broad, general, vague, or all-inclusive. One i respondent stated that he disliked responding without also j I clarifying his response. Another said that he has a "neu rotic compulsion to improve upon questionnaires," and he | rewrote nearly every item. Four respondents felt that too many questions overlapped and one stated that "ten items icould be dropped without discomfort." Seven respondents in one way or another believed that the instrument contained I too much education "jargon" or "educationese." The words (that were criticized by these respondents were "implement," I ("aims," "goals," "purposes," "objectives," and "laboratory I jof education for citizenship." One of these respondents hoped that the "jargon won't distort your responses." Five respondents indicated that the items were "loaded" so as to i [produce a maximum response. Three respondents felt that 'several items were not desirable because they tended to arouse the "emotions" of the respondents. Similarly, three jrespondents disliked the "either-or" nature of certain items. Nine respondents felt that an "undecided" column should have been added, and several made that addition on the right-hand margin of the survey. Two respondents thought that the instrument reflected a "psychological- social" orientation. One written comment that could not be readily clas- isified was the hope by one respondent that disagreeing (or i agreeing) with a statement would not be interpreted as an acceptance (or rejection) of the opposite of the statement, i Only one respondent liked the instrument without reservations. Several thought the instrument itself I "points up" many of the problems of general education. Sev- ;eral others generally approved the questionnaire and the I ^purpose of the study but thought some items to be too gen- j jeral and overlapping. One respondent stated "a very good j 'general questionnaire but you will have trouble interpreting 'the results." ! Miscellaneous Comments ! | The most frequent comment in this category was the Jrequest to be forwarded a copy of the findings. Other com- I jments broadly treated the concept of general education. One I person stated that general education "seems to be an 195 educational blunder that is perpetuated as an 'ideal' and ifor job security by those of academic blindness.” Another stated that "general education is not a peculiar function of an educational institution. The whole of life, environment, and of continuing education through life is concerned." Another respondent wrote that "the general tenor of my thinking is reflected in Schools Without Failure by Glaser, The Technology of Learning by Skinner, and Education and Ecstasy." One other respondent noted that "if a person is to become a self-sustaining member of society that is cap able of reaching conclusions, he must have practice in developing these skills." Two written comments supported an expanded role for students in developing the program of general education. One person stated that "the student— both terminal and I transfer— should have far, far more latitude in selecting i courses relevant to his needs." Another respondent stated that "the sacred cows of required general education courses such as P.E., English, history, etc. should be butchered and made effective." One respondent felt that education is changing so rapidly that "perhaps the things we have known and loved are in fact unimportant to today's student." Lastly, 196 several respondents criticized the programs at their insti tutions, with one person stating that "instructors who expect academic achievement may feel very real discrimina tion from the superintendent, president, and dean." Summary of Written Comments Most of the written comments were explanatory in nature in that they sought to (1) clarify the respondent's answer, (2) expand or narrow the meaning of the item, or (3) point out additional features of the item. Some written comment was critical of specific items in that the respon dent stated the item to be "arbitrary," "loaded," or "poor." The written comments sometimes indicated a rejection of the item in question. The respondents emphasized the role of students in the evaluation of the general education program as well as in the planning of the program by writing the word "students" in the margin. Many comments rejected the idea that the student personnel center should be the focal point of the program of general education. The respondents supported by comments the idea that a representative curric ulum committee should develop the general education program. The comments on the inclusion of ethnic studies in general education were generally favorable to the idea; several 197 respondents felt that ethnic studies should be incorporated I ;into existing courses . J The analysis of the written comments on the items reveals two broad findings. The first is that many faculty members desire to see students participate more actively in the planning and evaluation of their programs of education. The second is that many faculty deeply resent counselors, counseling and guidance, and the student personnel centers. The comments on the survey instrument indicate that the choice of responses was too limited for many of the respondents. A fifth column for "undecided" was requested by several of the commentators. The comments also reveal that many respondents would have felt more at ease had "gen eral education" been defined. The impact of defining that term for the respondents is difficult to assess at this point. CHAPTER VII SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS Throughout the United States, general education appears to be in a state of decline. Many institutions of higher learning have actually abandoned their programs of general education, and efforts to revitalize these pro grams have not yet met with much success. Stanford Univer sity, for example, finds the attempt to give to all stu dents a common core of knowledge incongruous in an age of knowledge explosion. Daniel Bell at Columbia University urges that general education focus on the methodology of i ja discipline, as does the junior college educator, Arthur icohen. This study very broadly seeks to determine the attitudes of California community college faculty toward selected concepts of general education. 198 199 Summary If the California community colleges are to develop vital programs of general education, it is necessary to know whether specific faculty groups are oriented toward student- centered or intellectually-centered concepts of general edu cation. It is even important to know whether they reject particular concepts of general education, for the successful implementation of any educational program depends as much upon the attitudes of those who are responsible for carrying out the program as upon its philosophical basis. Even more, it is very likely that the successful program will be con structed so as to make best use of the attitudes of those who will carry it out. It is then incumbent upon educa tional planners to investigate the attitudinal orientations of the various faculty groups in the California community colleges. This study was limited to the following full-time California community junior college administrative and instructional personnel: deans of instruction, deans of student personnel, chairmen of academic and occupational- technical divisions, and instructors of English, speech, 200 history, social science, mathematics, physical science, business education, and vocational-technical education. The instrument was distributed to 1122 members of California community college faculties; 62 3 were returned in time to be included in the study, a 55 percent return. The responses were keypunched onto IBM cards and tabulated by an IBM 1130 computer that had been programmed for a "z" test of statistical significance between the means of matched pairs of junior college faculty groups for Part I of the study, and for a "z" test between the mean of a faculty group's response and a selected neutral mean of 2.500 for Part II of the study (a "z" score of 1.000 was determined to be signif icant for Part II of the study). The Findings of the Study General findings ! The general findings of Part I of the study are listed as follows: 1. On the goals, purposes, and objectives of gen eral education, no significant attitudinal dif ferences exist between the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel, the chairmen and the instructors of occupational-technical 201 divisions, the instructors of English and the instructors of speech, the instructors of his tory and the instructors of social science, the instructors of mathematics and the instructors of physical science. Only one significant dif ference in this area exists between the chairmen and the instructors of academic divisions. 2. The greatest number of significant attitudinal differences on the goals, purposes, and objec tives of general education exist between the deans of student personnel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions (seven), the deans of instruction and the instructors teach ing in occupational-technical divisions (six), the instructors teaching in academic divisions and the instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions (four), and the instructors of business education and the instructors of vocational-technical education (three). 3. Several significant attitudinal differences on the goals, purposes, and objectives of general education exist between instructors when the type of institution is considered. Differences 2 02 exist between large and small institutions (two), urban and rural institutions (three), new and old institutions (three), and Northern Califor nia and Southern California institutions (one). 4. On the administration and organization of the general education curriculum, the greatest num ber of significant differences occur between the deans of student personnel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions (seven), the deans of instruction and the instructors teach ing in occupational-technical divisions (six), and the chairmen and the instructors of occupa tional-technical divisions (five). If the items pertaining to the actual or potential role of the deans of student personnel and student per sonnel centered are excluded from consideration, only one significant difference between the deans of instruction and the deans of student personnel exists in this area. The findings indicate that few significant attitudinal dif ferences exist between the other paired groups of faculty on this part of the questionnaire. 203 5. On the methods and practices of general educa- i tion, very few significant attitudinal differ ences exist between the matched pairs of fac ulty. Three differences exist between the deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions, and between instructors teaching in new and old institu tions . The general findings of Part II of the study are listed as follows: 1. No group of California community college faculty is strongly oriented toward either student- centered or intellectually-centered concepts of general education. However, if forced to choose between concepts reflecting these orientations, most community college faculty groups are some what more oriented toward student-centered than intellectually-centered concepts. 2. Eight of the eleven significant responses indi cating an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education are responses to the statement that the essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of I 2 04 j knowledge which should be the common possession I of all students (Item 1). i The findings of Part I of the study Part I of the study attempted to determine which groups of California community college faculty are more ori ented toward student-centered and intellectually-centered concepts of general education. The findings are presented by hypothesis number as follows: 1. Neither the deans of instruction nor the deans of student personnel appear to be more oriented toward student-centered general education than the other. Four of the five significant differ ences that exist reflect an expanded role in general education for the student personnel centers, an expansion that is generally not sup ported by the deans of instruction. 2. An insignificant attitudinal difference exists between the chairmen and the instructors of aca demic divisions toward concepts of general education. 3. Several (six) significant attitudinal differ ences exist between the chairmen and the 2 05 instructors of occupational-technical divisions. The chairmen are more oriented toward student- centered concepts in each instance. 4. Significant differences exist between the deans of instruction and the instructors in occupa tional-technical divisions on fifteen items. On twelve of fourteen items, the deans of instruc tion are more oriented toward student-centered concepts. 5. Significant differences exist between the deans of student personnel and the instructors in aca demic divisions on sixteen items. On thirteen of these items the deans of student personnel are more oriented toward student-centered con cepts . 6. Significant differences exist between the instructors teaching in academic and occupa tional-technical divisions on eight items, with the instructors teaching in academic divisions being more oriented toward student-centered con cepts on all but one item that did not refer to their specific roles in general education. 206 7. An insignificant attitudinal difference exists between the instructors of English and the instructors of speech toward concepts of general education. 8. An insignificant difference exists between the instructors of history and social science toward concepts of general education. 9. An insignificant attitudinal difference exists between the instructors of mathematics and phys ical science toward concepts of general educa tion . 10. Significant differences exist between the instructors of business education and voca tional-technical education on six items. On all six items, the instructors of business education are more oriented toward student-centered con cepts than the other group of instructors. 11. On four of five significant differences between the instructors teaching at large and small institutions, the instructors teaching at small institutions are more oriented toward student- centered concepts of general education. 207 I j 12. On five of seven significant differences between instructors teaching at urban and rural institu- [ tions, the instructors at rural institutions are i more oriented toward student-centered concepts. 13. On five of seven significant differences between instructors teaching at new and old institutions, the instructors teaching at new institutions are more oriented toward student-centered concepts. 14. On all four significant attitudinal differences between instructors teaching in Northern and Southern California, the instructors teaching in Northern California are more oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. The findings of Part II of the study Part II of the study attempted to determine whether selected groups of California community college faculty were significantly oriented toward student-centered or intellec tually-centered concepts of general education. The findings are presented by hypothesis number as follows: 15. On five of the six significant responses, the deans of instruction are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. 16. 17 . 18. 19. 20. 21. 22 . 208 On all but five significant responses, the deans of student personnel are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. On all six significant responses, the instruc tors of English are oriented toward student- centered concepts of general education. On five of seven significant responses, the instructors of speech are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. On three of four significant responses, the instructors of history are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. On four of five significant responses, the instructors of social science are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. On three of four significant responses, the instructors of mathematics are oriented toward student-centered concepts of general education. On two of three significant responses, the instructors of physical science are oriented toward intellectually-centered concepts. 2 09 23. On two of three significant responses, the instructors of business education are oriented toward intellectually-centered concepts. 24. On four of six significant responses, the instructors of vocational-technical education are oriented toward student-centered concepts. Findings reported by significant responses to each item The significant responses to Part A of the question naire on the goals, purposes, and objectives of general edu cation are reported as follows; 1. The most strongly held attitude as measured by the number of significant responses (eight) by individual groups of faculty is the concept that the essential purpose of general education is tc give the students that core of knowledge which should be the possession of all students (Item 1). 2. The deans of instruction and the deans of stu dent personnel do not significantly disagree on the goals, purposes, and objectives of general education. 210 3. The deans of instruction and the deans of stu- i i dent personnel consistently reject more strongly all emphasis on the intellectual processes than the groups with which they are paired. 4. The instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions and— more specifically— the instructors of vocational-technical education are consistently the strongest supporters of intellectually-centered concepts of general education. The significant responses to Part B of the question naire on the organization and administration of the general education curriculum are reported as follows: 1. The deans of instruction, the deans of student personnel, instructors of English, history, and business education reject the idea that general ! education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too diffi cult (Item 13). 2. The deans of instruction and the instructors of history, mathematics, and business education 211 reject the idea that general education has greater value for terminal than transfer stu dents (Item 14). 3. The deans of instruction and student personnel, and the instructors of speech, social science, and vocational-technical education support the idea that general education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole (Item 21). 4. The deans of student personnel, and the instruc tors of speech and mathematics believe that an interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach. 5. The deans of student personnel as a group accept significantly only the role of advising the planners (of programs of general education) of the current and immediate needs of the students (Item 29). 6. Only six of the twenty-five items on this part of the questionnaire received more than three responses. 212 The significant responses to Part C of the question- ! naire on the methods and practices of general education are reported as follows: 1. All groups of the teaching faculty with the exception of the instructors of business educa tion significantly agree that it is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than j in one whose ratio is 75-1 (Item 42). Neither the deans of instruction nor the deans of stu dent personnel respond significantly to this item. 2. Five significant differences between paired groups of instructors occur in response to the statement that it is more important that stu dents be cognizant of the current social prob- I lems than that they learn the tools necessary i j for analyzing them (Item 43), but only the instructors of speech significantly disagree with the item. 3. The deans of instruction, and the instructors of speech and vocational-technical education agree that the surrounding community should be the 213 focal point and the laboratory of education for citizenship (Item 44). 4. Eleven of the fifteen items on the methods and practices of general education elicit three or fewer significant responses. Conclusions The findings of this study permit certain generali zations to be made regarding the attitudes of selected groups of California community college faculty toward dif fering concepts of general education. These generalizations are set forth as conclusions as follows; 1. While no group of California community college faculty is committed to intellectually-centered general education, no group of California com munity college faculty is strongly committed to student-centered general education either. If forced to choose between the two, the faculty groups tend somewhat toward student-centered general education. 2. The greatest attitudinal differences between paired groups of California community college faculty toward concepts of general education 214 occur between the deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions, the deans of student personnel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions, and the instructors in academic and occupa tional-technical divisions. The deans of instruction, the deans of student personnel, and the instructors teaching in academic divisions are more oriented toward student-centered con cepts than the faculty groups with which they were paired. While other paired groups of fac ulty may express differences on select aspects of general education, the total number of dif ferences between them is so small as to be of little importance. 3. Almost no attitudinal differences exist between the instructors of English and speech, the instructors of history and social science, and the instructors of mathematics and physical science. The lack of differences and perhaps even dialogue about the purposes and practices of general education or even the organization of the curriculum may in part be both a cause and 215 result of the declining vitality of general education in the California community colleges. 4. Significant findings that are important to the establishment of vital programs of general edu cation in the California community colleges are that no significant differences exist between the deans of instruction and the deans of stu dent personnel on the goals, purposes, and objectives of general education, and that the instructors teaching in the occupational-techni cal divisions are consistently more oriented toward the intellectually-centered concepts of general education than either the deans of instruction or the instructors teaching in the academic divisions. 5. No group of California community college fac ulty would strongly support a much expanded role for the deans of student personnel in the pro grams of general education at the present time. It is significant that the deans of student per sonnel do not support such expansion. Also, it is clear from the written comments that many faculty members are deeply distrustful of the 216 current role being played by these deans and the student personnel centers. 6. The single most widely and strongly held concept of general education among the surveyed groups of California community college faculty is that general education implies imparting a common knowledge to all students— regardless of type or level of abilities and achievements. The impact of this belief may be to force all students into one broad and convenient pattern of general edu cation that sidesteps the question, "What is it that this student should be learning?" 7. All groups of California community college instructors believe that increasing class size adversely affects their ability to implement general education objectives in their courses. 8. When attitudes of instructors from different types of institutions are compared, the instruc tors teaching in small, rural, new, and Northern California institutions are somewhat more ori ented toward student-centered concepts of gen eral education than instructors teaching in 217 large, urban, old, and Southern California institutions. Evaluation of the Study This section is included as an aid to those who I would undertake similar attitudinal surveys in the future as several inherent weaknesses of this study became apparent during the progress of the work. These are stated as i follows: i i j 1. As several of the items in the questionnaire j j were broad generalized statements, many of the i respondents would have preferred to answer "yes . . • but" or "no . . . but" in order to clarify their positions. This problem could have been solved by making the items more pre cise and specific. It could also have been I dealt with in a more satisfactory way by adding a fifth column in the responses for "undecided." 2. A fifth column for "undecided" should be included among the possible responses under all circumstances in order for the "agree" and "disagree" responses to mean anything more than 218 the acceptance of the least objectionable response. 3. In a forced-choice survey such as the one used in this study, the only columns to have great meaning are the "strongly agree" and "strongly disagree" columns. Some of the value of a scaled or weighted response is consequently lost. 4. Items that are broad and all-inclusive or con tain multiple elements not only are vexing to the respondents but have limited value for determining anything other than "gross" atti tudes, beliefs or sentiments. Consequently, with the exception of very great responses by many groups of faculty to only a few items, this study could not measure precise attitudes or opinions; this study was limited by design to measure little more than comparative orienta tions of paired groups of faculty and individual groups of faculty to broad "student-centered" and "intellectually-centered" concepts. 219 Despite the above stated limitations of this type of ■survey, the consistency of the findings would seem to indi cate that these findings are reasonably reliable. Recommendations The following recommendations are based upon the findings and conclusions of the study. 1. Programs of general education in the California j community colleges need to be carefully eval- i uated by representative committees at all insti tutions. These committees should consist of representatives drawn from the student popula tion, the student personnel center, the teaching faculty, and the administration. The purpose of the evaluation should be to determine the degree of success of the existing programs in light of the stated goals and objectives of the program. 2. Divisional and faculty-wide discussions of alternative and experimental programs of general education need to be initiated. The dean of instruction should initiate the dialogue. 220 3. The role of the student population in the plan ning and evaluation of the general education program needs to be greatly expanded. 4. The concept of general education as a core of knowledge common to all needs to be carefully examined in light of current student unrest, the student demand for relevance, and the knowledge explosion. 5. The role of the student personnel center in gen eral education should be made more clear to the instructional staff. This undertaking will more likely be successful if it is initiated by the instructional staff or the deans of instruction. 6. The Coordinating Council for Higher Education should strongly support the development of new approaches to general education at the community college level. 7. The general education of transfer students should not be a subject for negotiations between state colleges and community colleges on either specific courses or patterns of courses. The Associate of Arts degree itself should signify the completion of all general education 221 requirements for upper division standing at four-year institutions in California. 8. No prospective community college instructor should begin teaching without careful study of the nature, purposes, and significance of gen eral education. 9. Teachers' colleges and schools of education should offer courses and seminars in the area of general education. A P PE ND IX ES 222 APPENDIX A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FACULTY GROUPS 223 224 TABLE 4 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DEANS OF INSTRUCTION AND DEANS OF STUDENT PERSONNEL Items with which both deans disagree— with the dean of instruction disagreeing more strongly 16. General education programs at the junior college need to be organized at two levels— one for transfer stu dents and one for vocational-technical students (.05). Items with which the deans of student personnel agree and the deans of instruction disagree 26. Unless based on extensive studies of the surrounding communities and student characteristics, no program of general education is likely to be overly successful (.05). 28. The student personnel center rather than the library should be the primary unit around which the program j of general education is constructed (.01). | 35. The evaluation of the general education curriculum should be more a student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-facuity undertaking (.01). 45. The techniques of group therapy have great value in the general education curriculum (.05). 225 TABLE 5 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CHAIRMEN AND INSTRUCTORS IN ACADEMIC DIVISIONS Items with which both the chairmen and instructors teaching in academic divisions disagree— with instructors in these divisions disagreeing more strongly 4. General education should place a greater emphasis on teaching the major fields of knowledge than on further ing individual creativeness (.05). Items with which both the chairmen and instructors teaching in academic divisions disagree— with the chairmen of these divisions disagreeing more strongly 45. The techniques of group therapy have great value in the general education curriculum (.05). 226 TABLE 6 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CHAIRMEN AND INSTRUCTORS IN OCCUPATIONAL-TECHNICAL DIVISIONS Items with which both the chairmen and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree— with the chairmen agreeing more strongly 24. All members of the faculty should participate in the program of general education (.01). 25. An interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach (.01). Items with which both the chairmen and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree— with the chairmen disagreeing more strongly 14. General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students (.05). Items with which both the chairmen and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree— with the instructors disagreeing more strongly 11. There is no general philosophy according to which a general education curriculum should be constructed (.05) . 28. The student personnel center rather than the library should be the primary unit around which the program of general education is constructed (.05). 43. It is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (.05). 227 TABLE 7 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DEANS OF INSTRUCTION AND INSTRUCTORS IN OCCUPATIONAL-TECHNICAL DIVISIONS Items with which both the deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree— with the deans of instruction agreeing more strongly 10. Neither the psychological-social nor the intellectual needs of the student should be subordinated to the other ( . 01) . 15. No two students should be expected to pursue an identical program of general education (.05). 17. General education should be planned for all students regardless of their ability or achievements (.01). Items with which both the deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree— with the instructors agreeing more strongly 6. Remedial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education (.01). 42. It is more likely that general education objectives will be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (.01). 228 TABLE 7— Continued Items with which both the deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree— with the deans disagreeing more strongly i 3. General education at the two-year college should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students because they should already have acquired desirable attitudes toward citizenship, mental health, family life, etc. (.01) . 9. Activities that are purely recreational for students have slight value for the realization of general education goals (.05). 13. General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liber al arts curriculum seems to be too difficult (.05). 18. The exceptionally able student should be released from general education courses to pursue independent study (.05) . 46. Courses in the history of religion as a cultural phenomenon are inappropriate for general education (.05) . Items with which both the deans of instruction and the instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree— with the instructors disagreeing more strongly 43. It is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (.01). 229 TABLE 7— Continued Items with which the instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions agree and the deans disagree 2. General education should stress the intellectual pro cesses to a greater extent than the social and psycho logical development of the student (.05). 7. The focus of a program of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a discipline (.01). 16. General education programs at the junior college need to be organized at two levels— one for transfer stu dents and one for vocational-technical students (.01). 26. Unless based on extensive studies of the surrounding communities and student characteristics, no program of general education is likely to be overly successful (.01) . 230 TABLE 8 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DEANS OF STUDENT PERSONNEL AND INSTRUCTORS IN ACADEMIC DIVISIONS Items with which both the deans of student personnel and instructors teaching in academic divisions agree— with the deans of student personnel agreeing more strongly | 7. The focus of a program of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a discipline (.05). 10. Neither the psychological-social nor the intellectual needs of the student should be subordinated to the other ( .05). 15. No two students should be expected to pursue an identical program of general education (.01). 29. The role of the student personnel center in developing a program of general education should be to advise the planners of the current and immediate needs of the students ( . 05). 31. In developing a program of general education, the planners must rely heavily on the information provided by the student personnel center (.01). 33. The academic divisions should determine how they might implement the objectives of general education rather than actually determine these objectives (.01). 41. It is more likely that general education objectives will be met in a project oriented class than in a lecture oriented class (.05). 231 TABLE 8— Continued Items with which both the deans of student personnel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions agree— with the instructors agreeing more strongly 6. Remedial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education (.01). 42. It is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1 (.01). Items with which both the deans of student personnel and instructors disagree— with the deans disagreeing more strongly 3. General education at the two-year college should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students because they should already have acquired desirable attitudes toward citizenship, mental health, family life, etc. (.01) . 9. Activities that are purely recreational for students have slight value for the realization of general i education goals (.05). I I Items with which both the deans of student personnel and instructors disagree— with the instructors disagreeing more strongly 8. General education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system (.05). -------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 32 TABLE 8— Continued Items with which the deans of student personnel agree and the instructors teaching in academic divisions disagree [28. The student personnel center rather than the library should be the primary unit around which the program of general education is constructed (.01). 35. The evaluation of the general education curriculum should be more a student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-faculty undertaking (.01). Items with which the instructors teaching in academic divisions agree and the deans of student personnel disagree 2. General education should stress the intellectual pro cesses to a greater extent than the social and psycho logical development of the student (.01). 27. The teaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the program of general education than anyone else ( .01) . 233 TABLE 9 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS IN ACADEMIC AND OCCUPATIONAL-TECHNICAL DIVISIONS [Items with which instructors in both academic and [occupational-technical divisions agree— with instructors [in academic divisions agreeing more strongly j 27. The teaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the program of general education than anyone else (.01). 40. General education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems of our time (.05). i i i Items with which instructors in both academic and occupational-technical divisions agree— with instructors in occupational-technical divisions agreeing more strongly 1 6. Remedial education in basic skills should be given an | important place in general education (.05). i 33. The academic divisions should determine how they might implement the objectives of general education rather than actually determine these objectives (.01). 2 34 TABLE 9— Continued [Items with which instructors in both academic and Occupational-technical divisions disagree— with instructors in academic divisions disagreeing more strongly i | 4. General education should place a greater emphasis on j teaching the major fields of knowledge than on further ing individual creativeness (.05). 8. General education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system (.05). 46. Courses in the history of religion as a cultural phenomenon are inappropriate for general education ( . 05 ) . Items with which instructors in occupational-technical divisions agree and instructors in academic divisions disagree 7. The focus of a program of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a discipline (.05). 235 TABLE 10 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS OF ENGLISH AND SPEECH jltems with which instructors of English agree and instructors of speech disagree 19. Few, if any, parts of the student's program of general education should be prescribed (.05). TABLE 11 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS OF HISTORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE Items with which both history and social science instructors agree— with instructors of history agreeing more strongly 16. General education programs at the junior college need to be organized at two levels— one for transfer stu dents and one for vocational-technical students (.05). Items with which both history and social science instructors agree— with instructors of social science agreeing more strongly 37. So seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking space can serve as a learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems (.05). 2 36 TABLE 12 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS OF MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE Items with which both instructors of physical science and mathematics disagree— with instructors of physical science disagreeing more strongly 43. It is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (.05). 237 TABLE 13 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS OF BUSINESS AND VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL EDUCATION Items with which instructors of both business and vocational-technical education agree— with instructors of business education agreeing more strongly !22. Students must help to plan any general education | program that pretends to be interested in their 1 needs ( .05). Items with which instructors of both business and vocational-technical education agree— with instructors of vocational-technical education agreeing more strongly 7. The focus of a program of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a discipline ( .05). Items with which instructors of both business and vocational-technical education disagree— with instructors of business education disagreeing more strongly 13. General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liber al arts curriculum seems to be too difficult (.05). 38. Tha aim of general education has been achieved when it can be demonstrated that the content has been perceived and remembered by the students (.05). 2 38 TABLE 13— Continued Items with which instructors of vocational-technical education agree and instructors of business disagree 2. General education should stress the intellectual pro cesses to a greater extent than the social and psycho logical development of the student (.05). 4. General education should place a greater emphasis on teaching the major fields of knowledge than on further ing individual creativeness (.05). I 2 39 TABLE 14 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS TEACHING AT LARGE AND SMALL INSTITUTIONS Items with which instructors teaching at both large and small institutions agree— with those teaching at large institutions agreeing more strongly 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (.05). Items with which instructors teaching at both large and small institutions agree— with those teaching at small institutions agreeing more strongly 40. General education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems of our time (.01). Items with which instructors teaching at both large and small institutions disagree— with those teaching at large institutions disagreeing more strongly 35. The evaluation of the general education curriculum should be more a student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-facuity undertaking (.05). Items with which instructors teaching at both large and small institutions disagree— with those teaching at small institutions disagreeing more strongly 8. General education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system (.05). 31. In developing the program of general education, the planners must rely heavily on the information provided by the student personnel center (.05). 240 TABLE 15 i I | SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS ; TEACHING AT URBAN AND RURAL INSTITUTIONS i Items with which instructors teaching at both urban and rural institutions agree— with those teaching at urban institutions agreeing more strongly 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (.01). 27. The teaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the program of general education than anyone else (.05). Items with which instructors teaching at both urban and rural institutions agree— with those teaching at rural institutions agreeing more strongly 40. General education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems of our time (.05). Items with which instructors teaching at both urban and rural institutions disagree— with instructors at urban institutions disagreeing- more strongly 3. General education at the two-year college should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students because they should already have acquired desirable attitudes toward citizenship, mental health, family life, etc. (.05) . 241 TABLE 15— Continued Items with which instructors teachinq at both urban and rural institutions disagree— with those teachinq at rural jinstitutions disagreeing more strongly 35. The evaluation of the general education curriculum should be more a student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-facuity undertaking (.05). Items with which instructors from urban institutions agree and those from rural institutions disagree 2. General education should stress the intellectual pro cesses to a greater extent than the social and psycho logical development of the student (.05). Items with which instructors from rural institutions agree and those from urban institutions disagree 31. In developing the program of general education, the planners must rely heavily on the information provided by the student personnel center (.05) . 242 TABLE 16 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS TEACHING AT NEW AND OLD INSTITUTIONS Items with which instructors at both new and old institu- tions agree— with those at new institutions agreeing more strongly 6. Remedial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education (.05). Items with which instructors teaching at both new and old institutions agree— with those at old institutions agreeing more strongly 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (.05). Items with which instructors at both new and old institu tions disagree— with those at new institutions disagreeing more strongly 3. General education at the two-year college should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students because they should already have acquired desirable attitudes toward citizenship, mental health, family life, etc. (.05). 38. The aim of general education has been achieved when it can be demonstrated that the content has been perceived and remembered by the students (.05). 43. It is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them (.05). 243 TABLE 16— Continued Items with which instructors at old institutions agree and those at new institutions disagree 16. General education programs at the junior college need to be organized at two levels— one for transfer stu dents and one for vocational-technical students (.05). 48. The type of achievement required of science majors should not also be required of non-science majors (.05) . 244 TABLE 17 SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INSTRUCTORS IN NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Items with which both groups of instructors agreed— with instructors from Northern California more strongly agreeing 22. Students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their needs (.01) . 26. Unless based on extensive studies of the surrounding communities and student characteristics, no program of general education is likely to be overly successful (-01) . Items with which both groups of instructors agreed— with instructors from Southern California more strongly agreeing 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students (.05). Items with which both groups of instructors disagreed— with instructors from Northern California more strongly disagreeing 14. General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students. APPENDIX B SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY INDIVIDUAL FACULTY GROUPS 245 246 TABLE 18 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY DEANS OF INSTRUCTION Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with statement 21. General education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. 44. The surrounding community should be the starting point and the laboratory of education for citizenship. Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by disagreement with statement 7. The focus of a program of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology of a discipline. 13. General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult. 14. General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by agreement with statement 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. 247 TABLE 19 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY DEANS OF STUDENT PERSONNEL Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with item 21. General education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. 25. An interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach. 29. The role of the student personnel center in developing a program of general education should be to advise the planners of the current and immediate needs of the students. Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by disagreement with the item 13. General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult. 47. It is not likely that many general education objectives can be met in a mathematics class . 248 TABLE 20 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY ENGLISH INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with the item 22. Students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their j needs. 29. The role of the student personnel center in developing a program of general education should be to advise the planners of the current and immediate needs of the students. 37. So seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking space can serve as a learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems. 42. It is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by disagreement with the item 8. General education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system. 13. General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems too difficult. 249 TABLE 21 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY SPEECH INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered {general education by agreement with the item j 21. General education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. 25. An interdisciplinary approach to general education is | preferable to a disciplinary approach. 30. Both the librarian and the director of audio-visual services should be active participants in planning any program of general education. 42. It is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. 44. The surrounding community should be the starting point and the laboratory of education for citizenship. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by agreement with the item i ! 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by disagreement with the item 43. It is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them. 250 TABLE 22 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY HISTORY INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with the item 42. It is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by disagreement with the item 13. General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult. 14. General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by agreement with the item 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. 251 TABLE 2 3 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY SOCIAL SCIENCE INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with the item 21. General education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. 37. So seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking space can serve as a learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems. 40. General education should seek to involve students emotionally in the social problems of our time. 42. It is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by agreement with the item ! 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. 2 52 TABLE 24 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY MATHEMATICS INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with the item 25. An interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach. 42. it is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by disagreement with the item 14. General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by agreement with the item 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. 253 TABLE 2 5 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY PHYSICAL SCIENCE INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by agreement with the item 42. It is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by disagreement with the item 47. It is not likely that many general education objectives can be met in a mathematics class. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by agreement with the item | 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give j the students that core of knowledge which should be j the common possession of all students. 2 54 TABLE 26 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY BUSINESS EDUCATION INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered general education by disagreement with the item 13. General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult. 14. General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students. Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- centered general education by agreement with the item 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. I TABLE 2 7 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL EDUCATION INSTRUCTORS Responses reflecting an orientation toward student-centered ‘ general education by agreement with the item I |21. General education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. 33. The academic divisions should determine how they might i implement the objectives of general education rather than actually determine these objectives. j ;42. It is more likely that general education objectives j can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is j 2 5-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. I (44. The surrounding community should be the starting point : and the laboratory of education for citizenship. i Responses reflecting an orientation toward intellectually- | centered general education by agreement with the item 1. The essential purpose of general education is to give I the students that core of knowledge which should be i the common possession of all students. i I 6. Remedial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education. APPENDIX C SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES BY ITEM 2 56 257 TABLE 28 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 1 Item 1: The essential purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession of all students. Hypothesis 11; Instructors teaching in both large and small institutions agree with this statement— with the instructors in large institutions agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 12; Instructors teaching in both urban and rural institutions agree with this statement— with instructors in urban institutions agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 13: Instructors teaching in both new and old institutions agree with this statement— with instructors in old institutions agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 14: Instructors teaching in both Northern and Southern California agree with this statement— with the instructors in Southern California agreeing more strongly (.05) . Hypothesis 15: Deans of instruction agree with this statement. Hypothesis 18: Instructors of speech agree with this item. Hypothesis 19: Instructors of history agree with this item. Hypothesis 20: Instructors of social science agree with this statement. Hypothesis 21; Instructors of mathematics agree with this statement. Hypothesis 22: Instructors of physical science agree with this statement. Hypothesis 23: Instructors of business education agree with this statement. Hypothesis 24; Instructors of vocational-technical educa tion agree with this statement. 258 TABLE 29 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 2 Item 2: General education should stress the intellectual processes to a greater extent than the social and psychological development of the student. Hypothesis 4: Instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions agree with this statement while deans of instruction do not (.05) . Hypothesis 5: Instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this statement while deans of student personnel do not (.01). Hypothesis 10: Instructors teaching in vocational-technical courses agree with this statement while instructors teaching business education courses do not (.05). Hypothesis 12: Instructors teaching in urban institutions agree with this statement while those teaching in rural jinstitutions do not (.05). 259 TABLE 30 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 3 Item 3: General education at the two-year college should focus primarily on the intellectual growth of the students because they should already have acquired desirable attitudes towards citizenship, mental health, family life, etc. Hypothesis 4; Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement— with deans of instruction disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 5; Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors teaching in academic divisions disagree with this statement— with deans of student personnel disagreeing much more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 12; Instructors teaching in both urban and rural institutions disagree with this statement— with those teach ing in rural institutions disagreeing more strongly (.05). i Hypothesis 13: Instructors teaching in both new and old institutions disagree with this statement— with instructors teaching in new institutions disagreeing more strongly ( • 05) . 260 TABLE 31 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 4 Item 4: General education should place a greater emphasis on teaching the major fields of knowledge than on furthering individual creativeness. Hypothesis 2: Both chairmen of academic divisions and instructors teaching in these divisions disagree with this statement— with instructors disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 6: Both instructors teaching in academic divi sions and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement— with those teaching in academic divisions disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 10: Instructors teaching vocational-technical courses agree with this statement, while those teaching business education courses do not (.05). 261 TABLE 32 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 6 Item 6: Remedial education in basic skills should be given an important place in general education. Hypothesis 4: Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with instructors in these divisions agree ing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 5: Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors teaching in academic divisions agree with this state ment— with instructors teaching in these divisions agree ing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 6: Instructors teaching in both academic divi sions and occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with instructors in occupational-technical divi sions agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 13: Instructors at both new and old institutions jagree with this statement— with instructors teaching in new institutions agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 24: Instructors of vocational-technical educa tion agree with this item. 262 TABLE 33 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 7 ! jltem 7: The focus of a program of general education should ; be that of introducing students to the methodology of a discipline. Hypothesis 4: Instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions agree with this statement, while deans of instruction strongly disagree with the statement (.01). Hypothesis 5: Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors teaching in academic divisions disagree with this statement— with deans of student personnel disagreeing more strongly ( .05). Hypothesis 6; Instructors in academic divisions disagree with this statement, while instructors in occupational- technical divisions agree (.05). Hypothesis 10; Instructors of business education courses are "neutral" toward this statement (mean response: 2.500), while instructors of vocational-technical courses are in agreement ( . 05) . Hypothesis 15: Deans of instruction disagree with this statement. 263 TABLE 34 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 8 Item 8: General education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the student to develop his own value system. Hypothesis 5: Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors in academic divisions disagree with this statement— with instructors in these divisions disagreeing more strongly ( . 05) . Hypothesis 6; Instructors in both academic divisions and occupational-technical divisions disagree with this state ment— with instructors in academic divisions disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 11; Instructors in both large and small insti tutions disagree with this statement— with instructors in small institutions disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 17; Instructors of English disagree with this statement r 264 TABLE 35 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 9 Item 9: Activities that are purely recreational for students have slight value for the realization of general education goals. Hypothesis 4; Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement— with deans of instruction disagreeing more strongly ( .05) . Hypothesis 5; Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors teaching in academic divisions disagree with this statement— with deans of student personnel disagreeing more strongly { .05) . 265 TABLE 36 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 10 Item 10: Neither the psychological-social nor the intellec tual needs of the student should be subordinated to the other. Hypothesis 4; Both deans of instruction and instructors in occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with deans of instruction agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 5: Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors teaching in academic divisions agree with this state ment— with deans of instruction agreeing more strongly ( .05) . TABLE 37 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 11 Item 11: There is no general philosophy according to which a general education curriculum should be constructed. Hypothesis 3: Both chairmen of occupational-technical divi sions and instructors teaching in these divisions disagree with this statement— with instructors teaching in the occupational-technical divisions disagreeing more strongly ( .05) . TABLE 38 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 13 Item 13: General education should be intended for the general run of college students for whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum seems to be too difficult. I Hypothesis 4: Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement— with deans of instruction disagreeing more strongly ( . 05). Hypothesis 10: Instructors of both business education and vocational-technical education disagree with this state ment— with instructors of business education disagreeing more strongly. { Hypothesis 15: (statement. ! { Hypothesis 16: (this statement. i i { Hypothesis 17: statement. Hypothesis 19: Instructors of history disagree with this {statement. I ( Hypothesis 23: Instructors of business education disagree with this statement. Deans of instruction disagree with this Deans of student personnel disagree with Instructors of English disagree with this TABLE 39 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 14 Item 14: General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students. (Hypothesis 3: Both chairmen of occupational-technical divisions and instructors teaching in these divisions disagree with this statement— with the chairmen of these divisions disagreeing more strongly (.05). 'Hypothesis 14; Instructors in both Northern and Southern California disagree with this statement— with instructors in Northern California disagreeing more strongly (.05). ■ Hypothesis 15: jstatement. I ! i Hypothesis 19: 'statement. i ( Hypothesis 21; this statement. ! Hypothesis 23: Instructors of business education disagree iwith this statement. Deans of instruction disagree with this Instructors of history disagree with this Instructors of mathematics disagree with 268 TABLE 40 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 15 Item 15: No two students should be expected to pursue an identical program of general education. Hypothesis 4; Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with the deans of instruction agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 5: Both deans of student personnel and instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this statement— with the deans of student personnel agreeing more strongly (.01). 269 i i TABLE 41 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 16 Item 16: General education programs at the junior college need to be organized at two levels— one for transfer students and one for vocational-technical students. Hypothesis 1: Both deans of instruction and deans of student personnel disagree with this statement— with the deans of instruction disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 4: Instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions agree with this statement while deans of instruction disagree (.01). Hypothesis 8: Instructors of social science are "neutral" toward this statement (mean response: 2.500) while instruc tors of history disagree (.05). Hypothesis 13: Instructors at old institutions agree with this statement while instructors at new institutions disagree with it (.05). 270 TABLE 42 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 17 Item 17; General education should be planned for all stu dents regardless of their ability or achievements. Hypothesis 4: Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with deans of instruction agreeing more strongly (-01). TABLE 43 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 18 Item 18: The exceptionally able student should be released from general education courses to pursue indepen dent study. I Hypothesis 4: Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement— with deans of instruction disagreeing more strongly ( .05). TABLE 44 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 19 Item 19: Few, if any, parts of the student's program of general education should be prescribed. Hypothesis 7: Instructors of English agree with this state ment while instructors of speech disagree with it (.05). TABLE 45 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 21 Item 21: General education should be dovetailed with vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. Hypothesis 15: Deans of instruction agree with this statement. Hypothesis 16: Deans of student personnel agree with this statement. Hypothesis 18: Instructors of speech agree with this statement. Hypothesis 20: Instructors of social science agree with this statement. Hypothesis 24: Instructors of vocational-technical education agree with this statement. 2 72 TABLE 46 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 22 Item 22: Students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their needs. Hypothesis 10: Instructors of both business education an vocational-technical education agree with this statement— with instructors of business education agreement more istrongly ( .05). i Hypothesis 14: Instructors in both Northern and Southern California agree with this statement— with instructors in Northern California agreeing more strongly (.01). I Hypothesis 17: Instructors of English agree with this statement. TABLE 47 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 24 Item 24: All members of the faculty should participate in the program of general education. Hypothesis 3: Both chairmen of occupational-technical divi sions and instructors teaching in these divisions agree with this statement— with the chairmen agreeing much more strongly ( . 01) . 273 TABLE 48 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 25 Item 25: An interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach. Hypothesis 3: Both chairmen of occupational-technical divisions and instructors teaching in these divisions agree with this statement— with the chairmen agreeing much more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 16: Deans of student personnel agree with this statement. Hypothesis 18: Instructors of speech agree with this statement. Hypothesis 21: Instructors of mathematics agree with this statement. 2 74 TABLE 49 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 26 Item 26: Unless based on extensive studies of the surround ing communities and student characteristics, no program of general education is likely to be overly successful. Hypothesis 1: Deans of student personnel agree with this statement while deans of instruction disagree with it (.05) . Hypothesis 4: Instructors teaching in occupational- technical divisions agree with this statement while deans of instruction disagree with it (.01). Hypothesis 14: Instructors in both Northern and Southern California agree with this statement— with instructors in Northern California agreeing much more strongly (.01). 275 TABLE 50 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 2 7 Item 27: The teaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the program of general education than anyone else. Hypothesis 5: Instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this statement while deans of student personnel disagree with it (.01). Hypothesis 6: Instructors in both academic and occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with instructors in academic divisions agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 12: Instructors in both urban and rural institutions agree with this statement— with instructors in urban institutions agreeing more strongly (.05). 2 76 TABLE 51 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 28 Item 28: The student personnel center rather than the library should be the primary unit around which the program of general education is constructed. Hypothesis 1: Deans of instruction disagree with this statement while deans of student personnel agree with it (.01) . Hypothesis 3: Both chairmen of occupational-technical divisions and instructors teaching in these divisions disagree with this statement— with the instructors disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 5: Deans of student personnel agree with this statement while instructors teaching in academic divisions strongly disagree with it (.01). 277 TABLE 52 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 2 9 Item 29: The role of the student personnel center in developing a program of general education should be to advise the planners of the current and immediate needs of the students. Hypothesis 5: Deans of student personnel and instructors in academic divisions agree with this statement— with the deans of student personnel agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 16: Deans of student personnel agree with this statement. Hypothesis 17: Instructors of English agree with this statement. 2 78 TABLE 5 3 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 31 Item 31: In developing the program of general education, the planners must rely heavily on the information provided by the student personnel center. Hypothesis 5: Both the deans of student personnel and the instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this statement— with the deans of student personnel agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 11; Instructors in small institutions agree with this statement while instructors in large institutions disagree with it (.05) . Hypothesis 12: Instructors in rural institutions agree with this statement while instructors in urban institutions disagree with it (.05). 279 TABLE 54 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 33 Item 33: The academic divisions should determine how they might implement the objectives of general educa tion rather than actually determine these objectives. Hypothesis 5: Both the deans of student personnel and the {instructors teaching in academic divisions agree with this {statement— with the deans of student personnel agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 6: Instructors in both academic and occupa- (tional-technical divisions agree with this statement— with instructors in the occupational-technical divisions agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 24: Instructors teaching vocational-technical Education courses agree with this statement. 280 TABLE 55 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 35 Item 35: The evaluation of the general education curriculum should be more a student-counselor undertaking than an administrator-facuity undertaking. Hypothesis 1: The deans of student personnel agree with this statement and the deans of instruction disagree with it (.01). Hypothesis 5: The deans of student personnel agree with this statement while instructors teaching in academic divisions disagree with it (.01). Hypothesis 11: Instructors teaching in both large and small institutions disagree with this statement— with the instruc tors in large institutions disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 12: Instructors teaching in both urban and rural institutions disagree with this statement— with the instructors in urban institutions disagreeing more strongly (.05) . 281 TABLE 56 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 37 Item 37r So seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking space can serve as a learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems. Hypothesis 8: Instructors of both history and social science agree with this statement--with instructors of social science agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 17: Instructors of English agree with this statement. Hypothesis 20; Instructors of social science agree with this statement. 282 TABLE 5 7 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 38 Item 38: The aim of general education has been achieved when it can be demonstrated that the content has been perceived and remembered by the students. Hypothesis 10: Instructors teaching in large institutions disagree with this statement while those teaching in small institutions are "neutral" (.05). Hypothesis 13: Instructors teaching at both new and old institutions disagree with this statement— with instructors teaching at new institutions disagreeing more strongly (.05) . 283 TABLE 58 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 40 Item 40: General education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems of our time. Hypothesis 6: Instructors in both academic and occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with instructors in academic divisions agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 11: Instructors in both large and small insti tutions agree with this statement, with instructors in small institutions agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 12; instructors in both urban and rural insti tutions agree with this statement— with instructors in rural institutions agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 20: Instructors of social science agree with this statement. TABLE 59 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 41 Item 41: It is more likely that general education objectives will be met in a project oriented class than in a lecture oriented class. Hypothesis 5: Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors teaching in academic divisions agree with this state ment— with deans of student personnel agreeing more strongly (.05). 2 84 TABLE 60 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 42 Item 42: It is more likely that general education objec tives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. Hypothesis 4: Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching occupational-technical divisions agree with this statement— with instructors in occupational-technical divi sions agreeing more strongly (.01). i hypothesis 5: Both deans of student personnel and instruc tors teaching in academic divisions agree with this state ment— with instructors in academic divisions agreeing more strongly (.01). Hypothesis 17: Instructors of English agree with this statement. Hypothesis 18: Instructors of speech agree with this statement. Hypothesis 19: Instructors of history agree with this statement. Hypothesis 20: Instructors of social science agree with this statement. Hypothesis 21: Instructors of mathematics agree with this statement. Hypothesis 22: Instructors of physical science agree with this statement. Hypothesis 24: Instructors of vocational-technical education agree with this statement. 285 TABLE 61 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 43 Item 43: It is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the tools necessary for analyzing them. Hypothesis 3: Both chairmen of occupational-technical divisions and instructors teaching in these divisions disagree with this statement— with instructors disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 4: Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement— with instructors disagreeing more strongly (.05) . Hypothesis 9: Instructors of both mathematics and physical science disagree with this statement— with instructors of physical science disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 12; Instructors teaching in both urban and rural institutions disagree with this statement— with instructors teaching at rural institutions disagreeing more strongly (.05) . Hypothesis 18: Instructors of speech disagree with this statement. 286 TABLE 62 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 44 Item 44: The surrounding community should be the starting point and laboratory of education for citizenship. Hypothesis 10: Instructors of both business and vocational- technical education agree with this statement— with the instructors of vocational-technical education agreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 15: Deans of instruction agree with this statement. Hypothesis 18: Instructors of speech agree with this statement. Hypothesis 24: Instructors of vocational-technical education agree with this statement. 287 TABLE 63 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 45 Item 45: The techniques of group therapy have great value in the general education curriculum. Hypothesis 1: The deans of student personnel agree with this statement while deans of instruction disagree with it (.05) . Hypothesis 2: Both chairmen of academic divisions and instructors teaching in academic divisions disagree with this statement— with the chairmen disagreeing more strongly ( .05) . TABLE 64 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 46 Item 46: Courses in the history of religion as a cultural phenomenon are inappropriate for general education. I Hypothesis 4: Both deans of instruction and instructors teaching in occupational-technical divisions disagree with this statement— with the deans of instruction disagreeing more strongly (.05). Hypothesis 6: Instructors in both academic and occupational-technical divisions disagree with this state ment— with instructors in academic divisions disagreeing more strongly (.05). 288 TABLE 65 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 47 Item 47: It is not likely that many general education objectives can be met in a mathematics class. Hypothesis 16: The deans of student personnel disagree with this statement. Hypothesis 22; Instructors of physical science disagree with this statement. TABLE 66 SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES TO ITEM 48 Item 48: The type of achievement required of science majors should not also be required of non-science majors. Hypothesis 13: Instructors at old institutions agree with this statement while instructors at new institutions disagree with it (.05). 289 TABLE 67 ITEMS RECEIVING NO SIGNIFICANT RESPONSES 5. The aims of general education and personal adjustment are the same. 12. The most desirable program of general education is one that offers the greatest alternative of courses. 20. The counselor should only recommend which general edu cation courses best satisfy each student's individual needs. 23. To properly utilize the extracurricular for general education, the school must intrude upon the students' complete and autonomous control of nonacademic activities. 30. Both the librarian and the director of audio-visual services should be active participants in planning any program of general education. 32. A representative curriculum committee should have the basic responsibility for developing the program of general education. 34. The administration of the program of general education should be the responsibility of the dean of instruc tion . 36. General education is best served by the instructor who is as concerned with methodology as with content. 39. General education goals should be implemented in transfer courses even if this means that the instructor will be unable to cover all the material he thinks is important. 49. Literature in general education is more valuable for making the student aware of the "human predicament" than for teaching him an appreciation of that art form. 50. Ethnic studies should be part of the general education program of all students. APPENDIX D THE INSTRUMENT 290 FACULTY ATTITUDES TOWARDS GENERAL EDUCATION Part I. Personal and institutional data. 1. Please check the one square that best represents your area of responsibility: [ ] (1) Dean of Instruction [ j (2) Dean of Student Personnel or Guidance [ j (3) Division or Department Chairman, or Coordinator [ j (4) Instructor [ j (5) Other: (please fill in) 2. If you are an Instructor, Division or Department Chairman, or area Coordinator, please check the square most nearly reflecting your faculty responsibility: [ ] (1) English/Literature [ ] (2) Speech I j (3) History [ ] (4) Social Science ( 1 (5) Mathematics ( 1 (6) Physical Science [ j (7) Business ( ) (8) Vocational-Technical 3. Institutional size by ADA: [ ] (1) 1,000 ADA or over ( 1 (2) 999 ADA or less 4. Institutional setting: [ ) (1) Urban (w ithin 25 miles o f a city w ith a population of 50,000 or mora) [ 1 (2) Rural 5. Institutional age: [ 1 (1) New (founded after July 1, 1960) ( 1 (2) Old Part II. Questionnaire. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Do not sign this form . 2 . Read each statement and place an " X " in whatever column best fits your opinion about the statement. [ ] (2) Speech [ ] (31 History [ j (4) Social Science [ 1 (5) Mathematics [ 1 (6) Physical Science [ j (7) Business [ 1 (8) Vocational-Technical 3. Institutional size by ADA: ( 1 < 1 1 1,000 ADA or over I ) (2) 999 ADA or less 4. Institutional setting: [ 1(11 Urban (w ithin 25 miles o f a city with a population of 50,000 or more) I ) (2) Rural 5. Institutional age: ( I (1) New (founded after July 1, 1960) I ] (2) Old Part II. Questionnaire. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Do not sign this form . 2. Read each statement and place an " X " in whatever column best fits your opinion about the statement. 3. React as frankly as possible. 4. Be certain to complete reverse side of questionnaire. 5. Mail the completed form in the enclosed envelope. A. Purposes, goals, and Objectives 1. The essentiaf purpose of general education is to give the students that core of knowledge which should be the common possession o f all students. 2. General education should stress the intellectual processes to a greater extent than the social and psycho logical development o f the student 3. General education at the two-year college should focus prim arily on the intellectual growth o f the students because they should already have acquired desirable attitudes towards citizenship, mental health, fam ily life, etc. 4. General education should place a greater emphasis on teaching the major fields of knowledge than on furthering individual creativeness. 5. The aims of general education and personal adjustment are the same. 6. Remedial education in basic drills should be given an important place in general education. 7. The focus of a program of general education should be that of introducing students to the methodology o f a discipline. 8. General education should advance mutually agreed upon societal values rather than encourage the stu dent to develop his own value system. strongly strongly agree disagree disagree 9. Activities that ara puraly recreational for students have alight value for the realization o f general education goals. 10. Neither the psychological-social nor the intellectual needs o f the student should be subordinated to the other. Part B: The Curriculum. 11. There is no general philosophy according to which a general education curriculum should be constructed. 12. The most desirable program o f general education is one that offers the greatest alternative o f courses. 13. General education should be intended for the general run o f collegesstudents fo r whom the traditional liberal arts curriculum s eems to be too d iffic u lt 14. General education has peaser value fo r terminal than transfer students. 16. N o two students should bo expected to pursue an identical program o f general education. 16. General education programs at the junior collage need to be organized at two lev sis— one for transfer students and one for vocational-technical students. 17. General education should be planned for all students regardless o f their ability or achievements. 18. The exceptionally able student dtould be released from general education courses to pursue independent study. 19. Few, if any, parts of the student's program of general education rfiould be prescribed. 20. The counselor should only recommend which general education courses best satisfy each student's individual 21. General education should be dovetailed w ith vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. 22. Students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their needs. strongly agree agree disagree disagree I 1 [ ‘ [ 1 I 1 [ 1 [ ] [ 1 I [ 1 ( 1 2 92 14. General education has greater value for terminal than transfer students. 15. No two students should be expected to pursue an identical program o f general education. 16. General education programs at the junior college need to be organized at two levels— one fo r transfer students and one for vocational-technical students. 17. General education should be planned for all students regardless of their ability or achievements. 18. The exceptionally able student should be released from general education courses to pursue independent study. 19. Few, if any, parts o f the student's program o f general education should be prescribed. 20. The counselor should only recommend which general education courses best satisfy each student's individual needs. 21. General education should be dovetailed w ith vocational or transfer education to form an integrated educational whole. 22. Students must help to plan any general education program that pretends to be interested in their needs. 23. To properly utilize the extracurricular fo r general education, the school must intrude upon the students complete and autonomous control o f nonacademic activities 24. A ll members o f the faculty should participate in the program o f general education. 25. An interdisciplinary approach to general education is preferable to a disciplinary approach. 28. Unless baaed on extensive studies of the surrounding communities and student characteris tics, no program of gs w eral education Is Ifcely to be cverfy su c c a a s A il. 27. The t eaching faculty should have a greater voice in determining the program o f general education than anyone else. 28. The Student Personnel Center rather than the library should be the primary unit around which the pro gram o f ganeral education is constructed. 29. The role o f the Student Personnel Center in developing a program o f general education should be to advise the planners o f the current and immediate needs o f the students. 30. Both the librarian and the director o f audio-visual services should be active participants in planning any program o f gwiaral education. 31. In developing the program o f ganeral education, the planners must rely heavily on the inform ation provided by the Student Personnel Center. itrongly 32. A representative curriculum com mittee diould have the basic rem onsibility for developing the program' [ ] [ 1 [ ] o f general education. 33. The academic divisions should determine how they m i0 tt implement the objectives o f general education [ ) I ) I 1 rather than actually determine these objectives. 34. The edministration o f the p ro g an of general education should by the responsibility of the Dean of [ 1 [ ] I 1 Instruction. 35. The evaluation o f the general education curriculum dtould be more a student-counselor undertaking [ I ( I [ I than an administrator-faculty undertaking. Part C: Methods and Practices 36. General education is best served by the instructor who is as concerned w ith methodology as w ith content. I 1 I 1 I 1 37. So seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking mace can serve as a learning situation for I I I ] [ ] observing and analyzing contemporary social problems. 38. The aim o f general education has been achieved when it can be demonstrated that the content has been [ ] I I ( 1 perceived and remembered by the students. 39. General education goals should be implemented in transfer courses even if this means that the instructor I ] [ ] [ J w ill be unable to cover all the material he thinks is important. 40. General education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems o f our tim e. ( 1 ( 1 [1 41. It is more likely that general education objectives w ill be met in a project oriented class than in a lecture [ I I ) I ) oriented class. 42. It is more likely that ganeral education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teacher ratio is [ 1 [ 1 [ ) 25-1 than in one whose ratio is 75-1. 43. It is more important that students be cognizant of the current social problems than that they learn the [ I [ ] [ 1 tools necessary for analyzing them. 44. The turroundina community rhould be the stertina ooint and the laboratory o f education for titizem h ip. I ) [ 1 [ 1 strongly disagree [ 1 [ 1 [ ) [ I ( 1 [ ) [ 1 [ ) [ 1 I 1 [ ) [ ) [ 1 293 36. Ganeral education is bast served by the instructor who is as concerned with methodology as with content. 37. So seemingly unimportant a problem as finding a parking q>aca can serve as a learning situation for observing and analyzing contemporary social problems. 38. The aim o f general education has been achieved when it can be demonstrated that the content has been perceived and remembered by the students. 39. General education goals should be implemented in transfer courses even if this means that the instructor w ill be unable to cover all the material he thinks is important. 40. Ganeral education should seek to involve the student emotionally in the social problems o f our time. 41. It is more likely that general education objectives w ill be met in a project oriented class than in a lecture oriented date. 42. It is more likely that general education objectives can be met in a class whose student-teachar ratio it 26-1 than in one whose ra tio is 75-1. 43. It it more important that students be cognizant o f the currant social problems than that they learn the tools necessary fo r analyzing them. 44. The surrounding community should be the starting point and the laboratory o f education for citizendiip. 45. The techniques o f group therapy have great value in the general education curriculum. 46. Courses in the history o f religion as a cultural phenomenon are inappropriate for general education. 47. It it not likely that many general education objectives can be m et in a mathematics class. 48. The type of achievement required o f science majors should not also be required o f nonscience majors. 49. Literature in general education is more valuable fo r making the student aware o f the "human predica m ent" than fo r teaching him an appreciation o f that art form . 50. Ethnic studies should be part o f the general education program of all students. 293 b i b l i o g r a p h y 2 94 BIBLIOGRAPHY American Council on Education. Cooperation in general education: A final report of the Executive Committee of the Cooperative Study in General Education. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1947. Axelrod, J., Freedman, M. B., Hatch, W. R., Katz, J., & Sanford, N. Search for relevance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1969. Baker, J. K. 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(Doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California) Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1964. No. 64-12, 464. I Galfo, A. J., & Miller, E. Interpreting educational research. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1965. I General education is "dead, dying." Stanford Observer, December, 1968. Gleazer, E. J., Jr. This is the community college. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Gray, W. S. (Ed.) General education: Its nature, scope and essential elements. Proceedings of the Institute for Administrative Officers of Higher Institutions. Vol. 6. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934. iHarbeson, J. W. The Pasadena reorganization. In W. S. Gray ' (Ed.), General education: Its nature, scope and essen- ' tial elements. Proceedings of the Institute for Admin istrative Officers of Higher Institutions. Vol. 6. ' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934. [Harvard Committee. General education in a free society. ■ Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1945. Haun, R. R. (Ed.) 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Creator Porter, Samuel Thomas (author)

Core Title Attitudes Of Selected California Community Junior College Faculty Toward Student-Centered And Intellectually-Centered Concepts Of General Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Education

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag education, higher,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Wilbur, Leslie (committee chair), O'Neill, William S. (committee member), Robb, J. Wesley (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-449715

Unique identifier UC11363182

Identifier 7107735.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-449715 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7107735

Dmrecord 449715

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Porter, Samuel Thomas

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA