CPU college freshmen’s reasons for taking the course they are pursuing

Abstract

What factors influence Filipino young men and women’s choice of their college courses? In order to shed some light on this question, a survey was made of the reasons of the college freshmen of Central Philippine University of the school year 1973—1974. The reasons for the choice of one’s college course were elicited as part of a questionnaire survey that was conducted among the freshmen of six colleges of the University; namely College of Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Engineering, and Nursing. The freshmen were asked to complete the completion-type item, “I decided to take the course I am taking now because...” Out of a total of 1,529 enrolled as “freshmen,” 1,197 participated in the survey. Only 1,192 fully accomplished questionnaires could be included in the analysis of the data.

Each of the college groups was divided into the younger and older sub-groups. The younger students consisted of those who were born in 1955 and later; the older respondents included those born in 1954 and earlier. Each age subgroup was sub-divided into two— those who belong to the low socio-economic group (from now on to be referred to as the low SES subgroup) and those who belong to the high socio-economic group (from now on to be called the high SES sub-group.) The low SES sub-group was composed of students who got scores of 10.5 and less; the high SES sub-group made up of students who got scores of 11.0 and higher, in the Socio-Economic Scale.