A study of the perceptions of high school seniors concerning the large, metropolitan junior college in their college district

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1974

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The purpose of this study was to determine the perception of San Jacinto College held by seniors attending the ten high schools within the college district. A random sample of 10% of the seniors from the May graduating class of 1974 was asked to complete the survey instrument. The instrument used was developed by A. D. Porter at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1971. The sample consisted of approximately equal number of male and female students from each school. The findings show that the majority of the seniors were White/Caucasian and planned to attend a college or university within Texas. Business was the most popular choice as an area of study. The study revealed that friends were the most influential group in the formulation of their opinion of the college. A total of 263 usable mark sense answer sheets were obtained, representing 91% of the participants. In Phase One the data were analyzed statistically utilizing Dixon's Biomedical Computer Programs. The data were submitted to principal factor analysis to determine the number of meaningful factors present. Phase Two consisted of resubmitting the data to principal component factor analysis requesting a ten factor solution. The factors were rotated using Kaiser's varimax rotation procedure. Those factors, so identified, were named on the basis of items which correlated significantly with each factor. In Phase Three, subject factor scores were submitted to a step-wise discriminant analysis to determine significant difference among groups. Seven hypotheses, in null form, were tested for significance at the .05 level. Four hypotheses were not rejected. The four dealt with mother's educational attainment, father's educational attainment, family income level, and whether seniors had visited the college. Three of the seven null hypotheses were rejected at the .05 level of significance. The hypotheses pertained to differences in perception of San Jacinto College between seniors from north of the Houston Ship Channel and seniors from south of the channel. Students from south high school campuses considered attending San Jacinto College demeaning as opposed to students from north high school campuses who reflected a positive attitude toward the college. The second hypothesis revealed significant differences between the females from the south high school campuses, who consider the college demeaning, and males from the north high school campuses, who consider attendance at the college not to be demeaning. The third hypothesis was based on differences between the perception of San Jacinto College held by seniors planning to attend the college and seniors planning not to attend the college. Those seniors from north campuses, planning to attend the college, do not consider the college demeaning. Seniors from the south campuses, planning not to attend the college, consider attendance to be demeaning. A significant difference was also revealed between students from the south campuses concerning perceptions of academic excellence. Those students who plan to attend the college perceived the college as having academic excellence. Those students planning not to attend the college indicated a lack of academic excellence. The literature has shown a need for the colleges to go into their service areas and survey their potential clienteles. The results from the study appear to be potentially useful to the administration of San Jacinto College. A shorter instrument was developed as a secondary purpose of this study which would facilitate annual data gathering. It is recommended that more studies be conducted which investigate the factors that influence high school seniors' perception of their community college.

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