Psychologia, 1959,2, 157-164. CROSS-CULTURAL USE OF "THE STUDY OF VALUES"
WILLIAM G. RODD
Western Reserve University
1. INTRODUCTION
Masayuki Nobechi translated the Study of Values by Allport, Vernon and Lindzey into Japanese and, in September 1955, he gave this translated test to male and female students at Doshisha University, female students at Doshisha Women's College, and public nurses. 1 ) Just a few months prior to Nobechi's research in Japan, the writer, not knowing of Nobee hi's work, arranged for the translation of the Study of Values into Chinese to study differences in responses on such a test between two different cultural groups of students on Taiwan. These two studies, occurring as they did just four months apart, are interesting because in one of the groups of students on Taiwan there were students who were born on Taiwan about 1937 and who, with their parents and grandparents, had lived an orderly and productive life under Japanese colonial rule there. Prior to the devastation wrought during World War II the Taiwan economy under Japanese rule advanced to such an extent that the island more than paid its own way as a Japanese colony and the people enjoyed a standard of living second only to Japan itself among the Far Eastern countries. During the Japanese administration of the island, however, the Taiwanese were permitted to retain their traditional Chinese dress and customs but the language of the schools was Japanese and the people lived in a Japanese environment until the war's end in 1945. Although the Taiwanese were ethnically Chinese, they enjoyed the order and security of life and property characteristic of the Japanese administration of the island. Then, about the time the Taiwanese students (who were tested by the writer in May, 1955) started into the second grade of the Japanese-controlled elementary schools, World War II ended and the National Government of China sent troops and government officials in 1945 to take control of the devastated island. The students were unable to use the strange Chinese Mandarin language successfully during the first few years of the National Govern ment's administration but in 1950 qualified mainland Chinese educators and Taiwanese teachers were placed in the schools when the National Government evacuated the main- land for Taiwan. ' In the same classrooms with the Taiwanese on Taiwan in 1955 were the mainland Chinese students who had accompanied their parents during the evacuation of the mainland of China before the onslaught of the Chinese Communists. These students had spent their pre-school childhood either moving from place to place as the military situation changed in China from 1937 to 1949 or living in the coastal cities under conditions imposed by the occupying forces. Finally, they fled with their parents to Taiwan and, as in the case of the Taiwanese children with whom they entered the seventh grade in 1950, they entered a stable, well-
1) Nobechi, Masayuki and Kimura, Teiji. "Study of Values" Applied to Japanese Students. Psycho logia, December, 1957, Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 120-122.
157 158 RODD
:administered school program for the first time in their lives. Both groups of students knew from personal experiences the devastation caused by frequent bombings and strafings of all-out war. Both groups had begun school before the end of W orId War n had and continued during the chaos of the postwar efforts to rehabili tate the war's damage to Taiwan and to the mainland of China. The Taiwanese children remained, for the most part, in their own homes in the cities of Taiwan during these harrow ing days, while the mainland Chinese children were forced to move a great deal until the final evacuation from their mainland homes to Taiwan. The material presented here is part of a greater body of data obtained in the writer's cross-cultural study conducted in the Taiwan schools. American tests that seemed most appropriate were chosen, translated into Chinese, and administered in May, 1955, to approx imately 1,500 eleventh grade students in five representative cities on Taiwan-Taipei, Keel ung, Hsinchu, Taichung, and Changhua. Mathematics, science, critical thinking, interest, and non-verbal intelligence tests were used in making this study. These two groups of students who were studying together in the eleventh grade in 1955 had entered the seventh grade together in 1950 and therefore had been under similar school conditions for only five years of their lives at the time they were tested. This article will be mainly concerned with the results of the Study of Values and with the comparison of the two cultural groups on Taiwan with the Japanese groups used by Nobechi and the American standardization group used by the authors of the test. However, a short summary of the results of the other tests administered to these two groups of students on Taiwan will give the reader an insight into some of the mental characteristics of the students there.
n. SUMMARY OF RESULTS A. Culture Free Intelligence Test The Taiwan students were given the Cattell Culture Free Intelligence Test, Scale 3, Forms A and B. Scale 3 was used in Taiwan because this scale is the most difficult of the three scales and it is designed for "upper high school, college adults, and those already-selected groups in which stiffer selection is needed." The Culture Free Intelligmce Test is a nonverbal test and therefore translation into Chinese was not involved. Table 1 is presented to show the reader the results of administering the Culture Free Test, Form B, to 1,290 Taiwan students. It is clear from the results obtained on Form A and Form B of the Culture Free Test that Table 1 Mean Scores for 1,290 Taiwanese and Chinese Mainland Students on Culture-Free Intelligence Test, Scale 3, Form B, with Corresponding American L Q. Values FORM B 14.0 Years 15.0 Years 16.0 Years and Over Mean N LQ. Mean N LQ. Mean N LQ. Chinese Mainlander 33.50 2 146 29.04 27 117 27.37 496 106 Taiwanese 28.00 2 114 26.95 763 104 Tot"l Boys 33.50 2 146 29.80 15 119 27.21 706 105 Total Girls 28.07 14 114 26.89 553 104 Total Group 33.50 2 146 28.97 29 117 27.11 1259 105 Note: The corresponding Amcrican LQ. values for the mcan raw scores of the Taiw"n students in Table 1 are taken from Cattel!'s table of LQ. values for Scale 3 in his manual of direction. The raw scores of 44% of the Taiwan students placed them above 110 I.Q. of Cattel!'s standardization group in the United States. STUDY OF VALUES 159
,the two groups of students in the Taiwan schools reacted in a fashion similar to the standard ization group in the United States-a group whose cultural characteristics were much differ ent than those of the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese students of the Taiwan sample. The increase in mean raw scores from Form A to Form B for the total group of 1,290 students was approximately five score points, which is the same as that obtained by the test author with his American standardization group. The results showed that the Taiwan sample had (1) essentially the same mean as the American students using the same test, (2) essentially the same standard deviation, and (3) the same mean and standard deviation for boys as for girls. There was no statistically significant difference between the two cultural groups on Form B of the Culture Free Test. B. Mathel1latics and Science Tests Standard textbooks are used for all subjects in the Taiwan middle schools where the same standard academic course is offered to all middle school students throughout Taiwan and a survey of the table of contents of the standard mathematics and science textbooks showed that the same topics taught in American schools were being offered in the Taiwan schools. The mathematics and science tests of the Harry-Durost Essential High School Content Battery were chosen because this battery was based on an exhaustive review of representative instructional materials presented to high school students throughout the United States. Table 2 presents the mathematics and science-test results obtained in Taiwan. The end-of year American academic-course norms for the mathematics and science tests are given in column (7) because the academic courses offered in the United States in these two fields are similar to the standard courses in the Taiwan middle schools. By way of interpretation of Table 2 concerning the differences between the Taiwan and American norms, it should be stated that the school day in Taiwan is a strenuous one. School is in session six days a week for ten months of the year. Lesson preparation involving intense
Table 2 Mathematics and Science Test Results for 1,290 Chinese Mainland and Taiwanese Students
Chinese Total Total Total U.S. Test (1) Taiwanese (2) Mainland (3) Boys (4) Girls (5) Group (6) Norms(J) Mathematics Q3 41.86 40.98 44.91 35.90 41.54 37.50 Median 34.44 33.98 37.23 30.84 34.21 29.50 Ql 28.94 28.01 31.23 25.91 28.51 22.00 Mean 34.92 34.33 37.39 30.71 34.68 Science Q3 4231 43.27 45.31 39.82 43.15 44.67 Median 37.05 39.53 40.29 34.79 38.03 37.33 Ql 31.41 34.61 35.76 30.03 32.53 30.00 Mean 36,16 38.91 39.57 34.36 37.28 Number 765 525 723 567 1,290
memorization of subject matter, frequent and difficult examinations, a nine-hour school day, and extra-school activities combine to make the student's day on Taiwan a long and arduous . one. At the same time the results of the mathematics and science tests on Taiwan showed similar trends to results found in the United States. For instance, significant differences in favor of the boys were found in both the mlthernltics and science-test remIts, while there 160 RODD were significant sex differences in favor of the girls in the two-year grade averages for their mathematics and science courses in the middle schools. In spite of the diverse school and cultural background and early school interruptions of the Taiwan students, the difference in mean scores in mathematics between the Taiwanese group of 765 students and the mainland Chinese group of 525 students was not statistically significant. The differences in the mean scores in science were significant at the .01 level in favor of the mainland Chinese students. The writer concluded that both groups of students. were given the same chance to learn mathematics from the seventh grade through the elev enth grade in an extremely rigid, demanding, and rote memorization-type classroom. How ever, information concerning the items on the science test, by its very nature, was the type of information a student could learn about outside the classroom and because the mainland Chinese student was forced to adapt to more changing conditions in his early migratory type life, he probably came into possession of more fundamental information on the various. sciences than did the Taiwanese student who remained in a static, albeit, frightening position.
C. Critical Thinkillg Appraisal
The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Form Bm, was the most appropriate test for translation into Chinese of the few American tests that were available in the area of critical or logical thinking. Since the Chinese associates agreed that the situations presented in the Critical Thinking Appraisal could be translated and presented with little or no change to the Chinese students, changes in translation were made only in the use of American names. such as San-yu Middle School for Elmtown High School, in American geographical names, such as the city of Wei-ssu for the town of Westfield, and in proper names, such as Ai-te for Ed. These substitutions did not change the nature of the situations, and they were made to help the students feel at home with the test. Table 3 gives the same data for both the Taiwan group and the American standardiza tion group. The American standardization group consisted of 5,476 eleventh and twelfth grade students, from fifty-three schools in twenty-four states and all the geographic divisions of the United States. The Taiwan standardization group was taken from the eleventh grade and from fourteen schools from five cities in northern and central Taiwan. The median and mean Terman-McNemar I.Q.'s for the American group were 103.3 and 103.7 respective-
Table 3 Data for Taiwan and American Standardization Groups on Critical Thinking Appraisal. Form Bm Mean Q3 Median Qt Q Q3-Mdn Mdn-Qt P9o-PtO SD U.S. 54.30 61.33 53.25 45.73 7.79 8.08 7.50 29.50 10.90 Taiwan Chinese Mainland 54.11 60.12 54.90 48.65 5.74 5.22 6.25 20.93 7.93 Taiwanese 52.78 58.40 53.39 48.08 5.16 5.01 5.31 19.70 7.77 Total Boys 54.07 60.01 54.32 49.03 5.49 5.69 5.29 21.25 7.98 Total Girls 52.37 58.39 53.09 47.31 5.54 5.30 5.78 18.98 7.61 TotarGroup 53.32 59.10 53.80 48.30 5.40 5.30 5.50 20.38 7.86 ly, while the median and mean Cattell I.Q.'s for the Taiwan group were 106.7 and 104.0 respectively for 1,259 sixteen year-old students or older (there were 31 students under sixteen STUDY OF VALUES 161 years of age). The mean chronological age of the American group was seventeen years three months for the combined eleventh and twelfth grades as compared with seventeen years nine months for the Taiwanese group and seventeen years eight months for the main land Chinese group. There was much discussion with the writer's Chinese associates as to whether the Critical Thillkil1g Appraisal should be used in Taiwan because this type of test was radically different from tests the Taiwan students normally were given in the middle schools. Patterns of thought usually associated with the Chinese were also considered to be different than those associated with Americans and therefore there was much apprehension to the idea of sub jecting the Taiwan students to this American-constructed test calling for logic normally attributed to Americans. Mainland Chinese students as a group had higher mean scores and there was a significant difference at the .01 level between the total group of mainland Chi nese and the total group of Taiwanese students. Both the mainland Chinese and the Taiwa nese students were intimately acquainted with the unusual and harsh situations created by the war but the mainland Chinese students, especially, faced many difficult situations in their forced migration into and from the interior of China. The problems they met and solved in their struggle for survival on the Chinese mainland must have produced some change in their traditional approach to life situations as those presented in the Critical Thinking Appraisal .and this fact, the writer believes, explains the relatively similar statistics between the American .and Taiwan groups given in Table 3 as well as the fact that the statistically significant difference in critical or logical thinking was in favor of the mainland Chinese students. D. Study of Values After studying the results of the Study of Values given to Taiwanese and mainland Chinese students on Taiwan and the Japanese results found by Nobechi, the writer's principle ques tions were (1) would the Japanese data correspond more closely with the Taiwanese data than the mainland Chinese data, because of the early Japanese influence on the Taiwanese students .and their parents, (2) would the two groups on Taiwan resemble each other more closely than they would resemble the Japanese group, because of their close association since 1950, Dr (3) would the Taiwan results compare more favorably with the American standardization data than the Japanese results, because of the concentrated American influences at play on Taiwan since 1950 in the cities from which the Taiwan sample was taken. From the data available to the writer, it can safely be said that the three standardization groups (that is, the Taiwan, Japanese, and American groups) were similar in at least one im portant respect, which enables one to make generalizations after comparing their results. All three groups were either college groups or, in the case of the Taiwan group, a college preparatory group. In Japan 521 students were used from the Doshisha University, the Doshisha Women's College and from public nurses and the American standardization group consisted of 1,816 students from eight different colleges. The Taiwan group was taken from the eleventh grade of the Taiwan middle schools, which are the college-preparatory schools there. Table 4 combines the data from the three standardization groups, including a breakdown of the Taiwan group into the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese cultural groups. In compar ing the rank order from the highest mean to the lowest mean the Taiwanese and mlinland 162 RODD
Chinese groups were identical but they were more like the American group than the Japanese group, except in the economic and theoretical values that were reversed. The social value occupied a relative position in each of the three standardization groups and the social value is given a low preference by all three groups. The range of values in the Japanese and Taiwan group are about the same from a high mean of 46.45 for aesthetic value to a low mean of 35.52 the for religious value in the Japanese group compared with a high mean of 45.68 for the theoretical value to a low of34.14 for the social value in the Taiwan group. (The authors of the Study aIValucs applied a correction figure to bring the mean of each value closest to a mean of 40-this is the reason, of course, that the American means in all values are practically
Table 4 Means and Standard Deviations for 1,290 Taiwanese and Chinese Mainland Students on Allport Vemon Stlldy of Vallles with American and Japanese Standardization Data Group Theoretical Economic Aesthetic Social Political Religious Total Taiwan Mean 45.68 38.59 38.93 34.14 42.25 40.27 SD 7.09 5.56 7.14 4.99 5.35 6.98 Taiwanese Mean 46.27 38.75 38.96 34.06 41.88 39.94 SD 6.91 5.57 7.09 4.98 5.44 6.93 Mainland Chinese Mean 44.82 38.36 38.88 34.24 42.79 40.74 SD 7.26 5.52 7.25 5.10 5.16 7.07 Japanese Mean 39.83 40.45 46.45 37.81 39.94 35.52 SD 6.17 5.91 7.19 6.24 5.64 7.87 United States Mean 39.60 40.34 39.86 39.59 40.27 40.32 SD 8.27 8.44 9.51 7.29 6.83 10.90 equal-and since Nobechi has compared his Japanese results with the American results the writer assumes that Nobechi used the same correction figures in scoring the Study oI Valucs in Japan, just as the writer used the correction figures in scoring the Taiwan answer sheets.) The writer can find little, if any, similarity other than this range of values in the distribution of means for the Japanese and Taiwan groups. On the other hand, the standard deviations in Table 4 show that the Taiwan and Japanese groups are less variable in each of the values than the American group and the standard deviation in each of the categories are similar in value in both the Taiwan and Japanese groups just as they are in the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese groups. This means that the two Oriental groups were more uniform in their preferences than was the American group. Table 5 gives the means of the test values for the males and females of each of the three standardization groups. As in the total groups the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese groups show approximately equal means for both males and females, respectively. In the Japanese group there is little difference between males and females in the rank order of preference of the values, while the American males are in reverse rank order to the females. In the Taiwan group, however, there is no general tendency between the rank order of preference of the males and of the females. On the other hand, the rank order of preference for the respective values of the Taiwan males and the American males is the same, except for the religious and social values, while the females of these two groups show no particular similarity, STUDY OF VALUES 163
Although the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese do not show exactly the same rank order of variability in Table 5, their standard deviations generally follow the same rank order showing that the students of both sexes varied little in their responses to the test questions and indicating similar interests. The largest variability in all three standardization male groups is in the religious and in the aesthetic values and, while the Taiwan and American groups show only similarities in the rank order of their standard deviations for the respective
Table 5 Means and Standard Deviations for 1,290 Taiwanese and Chinese Mainland Males and Females on Allport-Vemon Study of Values with American and Japanese Male and Female Standardization Data
Group Theoretical Economic Aesthetic Social Political Religious MALES Total Taiwan Mean 47.44 39.84 37.78 33.68 42.45 38.66 SD 6.51 5.57 6.88 5.09 5.46 6.92 Taiwanese Mean 47.82 39.84 37.93 33.83 41.87 38.57 SD 6.20 5.50 6.81 5.08 5.58 6.79 Mainland Chinese Mean 46.76 39.82 37.51 33.42 43.48 38.80 SD 7.04 5.84 7.01 5.05 5.05 7.26 Japanese Mean 41.09 42.17 45.80 38.30 40.11 32.53 SD 6.39 6.73 7.54 7.16 6.52 8.27 United States Mean 43.29 42.12 37.20 37.70 42.70 37.01 SD 7.58 9.07 9.72 7.19 6.83 10.37 FEMALES Total Taiwan Mean 43.44 36.99 40.40 34.71 42.00 42.32 SD 7.15 5.16 7.18 4.91 5.16 6.49 Taiwanese Mean 43.92 37.07 40.54 34.42 41.90 42.02 SD 7.18 5.38 7.15 4.73 5.18 6.67 Mainland Chinese Mean 42.90 36.91 40.23 35.06 42.12 42.66 SD 6.03 5.64 7.07 5.93 5.34 7.73 Japanese Mean 39.42 39.87 46.67 37.64 39.87 36.52 SD 6.03 5.64 7.07 5.93 5.34 7.73 United States Mean 36.36 38.78 42.22 41.26 38.13 43.24 SD 7.45 7.49 8.66 6.96 6.08 10.52 values, the Taiwan and Japanese groups are identical in rank order standard deviations except for social and theoretical values that are reversed. The female standardization groups do not show the same similarities or trends in variability as the males of the respective groups.
Ill. SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF "STUDY OF VALUES"
The findings in ,,'lis article, then, have dealt with the results of aiministering the Study of Values in Chinese to 765 Taiwanese and 525 mainland Chinese, college-preparatory students in Taiwan in May, 1955, and of comparing these results to those obtained by Nobechi in September, 1955, when he administered the test in Japanese to 521 college students, and to those obtained by the authors of the Study of Values in their standardization group ofl,816 college students in the United States sometime prior to 1951. The observa tions, which the writer makes, are as follows: 164 RODD
1. From the results it is evident that the Taiwanese students on Taiwan in 1955 were more like the mainland Chinese students with whom they had been in school since 1950 than they were like the Japanese students or American students but it is also evident that generally the rank order of means for the respec tive values showed more similarity between the Taiwan students and American stud"nts than between the Taiwan stud"nts ar:d the Japanese students. 2. Just as Nobechi found, however, women on the average were more religious than men in the groups, including the Taiwan group, but less theoretical and less economic. 3. While Nobechi found that the students of both sexes in Japan much preferred aesthetic values to the other values, both sexes of the Taiwan group preferred the theoretical values. This is not surprising when one considers that both boys and girls on Taiwan are given the same standardized courses of study in the middle schools and that the Taiwan sample was taken from the college-preparatory schools where great emphasis is placed on mathematics and science and on memorization of subject matter. Nobechi discovered that in religious values the students in the United States scored much higher than the Japanese students in spite of the fact that the Japanese students were students in a Christian university and college. However, a closer look at the breakdown of the American group into sex groups shows that the American preference for religion values was concentrated in the females and that the mean of the American male& was the lowest of the values just as the mean of the Japanese males and females was the lowest. There was the same tendency in the Taiwan group, where the females of both the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese groups showed a higher preference for religious values than did the males. 4. While social values were not preferred by any of the groups, the Taiwan group was similar to the American group in this value in tbat the preference for social values was higher among females than among males; Japanese males, however, had slightly higher means in social values than did the Japanese females. 5. The rank order of means of the Taiwan group is interesting to speculate about its causes. As men tioned above, the standardization of subject matter and courses of study and the emphasis on academic preparation in Taiwan is probably responsible for the high preference of theoretical values by both male& and females of the Taiwan group. Likewise, the high choice of political values has probably been conditioned by the political indoctrination in the school curriculum and the regular political examinations that demand constant study and preparation on the part of both males and females. Little can be said about the rank order position of the religious, aesthetic, and economic values of the Taiwan group, but the fact that both the Taiwan males and females placed their preferences for social values last deserves an explanation. In Taiwan the boys and girls do not participate in social activities, such as dancing and teen-age parties, as the American boys and girls are accustomed to doing. On the other hand, participation in traditional Chinese family parties and the constant emphasis on academic preparation and stndy in the evenings probably explains the preferences shown by both the Taiwanese and mainland Chinese students to the social values defined by the American test authors. 6. Sufficient identifiable trends between and among the three standardization groups were found to justify the research done in Japan, Taiwan, and the United States with the Study oJ Vallles. The next step in the research cycle is a revision of this test in wcrding - to facilitate translation - and in the choice of items to sample the common and uncommon elements in the respective values in several different cultural groups as discussed here. MS. received VI 22, 59.