,p411110.111M111000411110111 REPORT RESUMES JC 660 088 ED 013 599 . A DESCRIPTION OF JUNIOR COLLEGES. BY- RICHARDS, JAMES M. AND OTHERS AMERICAN COLLEGE TESTING PROGRAM, IOWA CITY, IOWA REPORT NUMBER ACT-RR--JUL--1965--NO-5 PUB DATE JUL 65 EDRS PRICE MF -$O.25 HC- .11.92 48P. DESCRIPTORS- *JUNIOR COLLEGES, *COLLEGE ENVIRONMENT/ *INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT, STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS, TEACHER CHARACTERISTICS, STATISTICAL ANALYSIS, FACTOR ANALYSIS, FROM INFORMATION GIVEN TO THE AMER/CAN ASSOC/AT/ON OF JUNIOR COLLEGES BY 581 COLLEGES, 36 VARIABLES WERE IDENTIFIED IN THE AREAS OF TYPE OF CONTROL, CURRICULAR EMPHASIS, FINANCIAL CHARACTERISTICS, AND MISCELLANEOUS CHARACTERISTICS. AFTER THE COMPUTATION OF INTERCORRELATIONS AMCNG THESE VARIABLES, FACTORING OF THE RESULTANT CORRELATION MATRIX PRODUCED 12 FACTORS, SIX OF WHICH WERE ROTATED TOA FINAL SOLUTION--(1) CULTURAL AFFLUENCE,(2) TECHNOLOGICAL SPECIALIZATION,(3) SUE, (4) AGE,(5) TRANSFER EMPHASIS, AND (6) BUSINESS ORIENTATION. LACK OF CONGRUENCE OF THESEFACTORS WITH THOSE DEVELOPED IN AN EARLIER STUDY CF 4-YEAR COLLEGES INDICATES THAT DIFFERENCES DO EXIST BETWEEN THE TW) TYPESOF INSTITUTIONS. USE CF THESE FACTORS ENABLES THE ASSESSMENTCF JUNIOR COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTS IN TERMS CF THEIR EFFECTS CN STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENT AND GROWTH. DESCRIPTIONS OFTHE FACTORS AND SCORES OF EACH COLLEGE IN THE STUDY AREINCLUDED. (WO) ERIC U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY ASRECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT,POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICEOF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. ACT RESEARCH REPORTS A DESCRIPTION OF JUNIOR COLLEGES July, 1965 No. 5 James M. Richards, Jr. Lorraine M. Rand Leonard P. Rand Published by Research and Development Division American College Testing Program P. 0. Box 168, Iowa City, Iowa 52240 X660 Oa Summary In a population of 581 accredited junior colleges, measures of 36 major attributes were intercorrelated. With unity in the diagonal, a principal components analysis was carried out, extracting 12 factors with an eigenvalue greater than 1.00.The first six of these factors were rotated to a final solution through the Varimax procedure. The six rotated factors were titled:Cultural Affluence, Technological Specialization, Size, Age, Transfer Emphasis, and Business Orien- tation.The junior college factors are not congruent with factors for four-year colleges. A Description of JuniorColleges James M. Richards, Jr.' Lorraine M. Rand Leonard P. Rand The increasing interest in highereducation shown by the general public and the burgeoning studiesof colleges and universitieshave emphasized the need forcomprehensive information about thecharac- teristics of colleges and theways in which colleges differ.Such information is essential to gainingan understanding of the effect on student growth and developmentof different college environmerts. In the past sevenyears, several ways of describing institutions of higher education have been tried.Pace and Stern (1958) have developed the College CharacteristicsIndex (CCI), a true-false inventory which measures 30 featuresof the environmental "press" of the college.Astin and Holland (1961) havedeveloped the Environ- mental Assessment Technique (EAT)which attempts to assess the environment in terms of eightcharacteristics of the student body: its size, average intelligence, andsix-"personal orientations"-- Realistic, Intellectual, Social, Conventiennal,Enterprising, and Artistic-- based on the proportion of studentsin each of six classes of major field. These EAT variableswere found to account for a substantial amount of variance in CCI scales, and later theywere shown to predict the "effects" of the collegeas reported by the student (Astin, 1963).Still another way to describe collegeenvironments is factor analysis of ametwoomftwoosimet4, -2- various measures of college characteristics(Astin, 1962, 1965a). Finally, college environmentshave been viewed simplyas a set of potential stimuli, or "observablecharacteristics of the college that are capable of changing the sensory inputto the student attending the college" (Astin, 1965b). Previous studies of collegeenvironments, however, have been restricted to four-year collegesgranting the baccalaureate degree. The nearly 600 accredited juniorcolleges in the United Stateshave been ignored.Indeed, the failure of behavioralscientists concerned with education to consider juniorcolleges is pervasive. For example, in a recent book ofmore than 1000 pages self-describedas "a psycho- logical and social interpretationof the higher learning" (Sanford,1962), the index cites ten referencesto junior colleges, which is sixreferences fewer than to housemasters at Harvard. Moreover, themajority of the few references to juniorcolleges patronize and dismissjunior colleges as another two years of high school. The major exception to thegeneral neglect of junior collegesis the work of the University of CaliforniaCenter for the Study of HigherEdu- cation.This work, however, has involvedgeneral treatments of junior colleges (Medsker, 1960),sociological studies of singlejunior colleges (Clark, 1960), and studies ofthe articulation betweentwo- and four- year colleges (Knoell and Medsker, 1964).No attempt has been made to develop descriptions ofjunior college environmentsor to study the effect of junior collegeson students. -3- This disregard of junior colleges is unfortunate because of several trends in our society.The population of college-age people is growing rapidly, and changing employment patterns have produced an increasing need for highly trained, skilled personnel and declining need for un- skilled workers. As a result, the demand for education beyond high school is expanding very rapidly, and there is no indication of any decline in the future.In spite of the serious social problems resulting from these trends, many four-year colleges, and especially the most pres- tigious institutions, have been unwilling (or unable) to make any response other than increasing selectivity. As a result, it is probable that most if the burden of meeting the increased demand for education beyond high school will fall on junior colleges. Some projections estimate that by 1970, some junior college will be the first college attended by 75% of entering college freshmen (Prudential, 1963).In this situation, the interests of students, of colleges, and of society demand that plans for the future growth of junior colleges be as rational as possible and based on knowledge of colleges and their effects upon student development and accomplishment. The present study is a step in providing the knowledge necessary to intelligent planning for better junior colleges.The basic purpose is to organize the information currently available about junior colleges into a brief profile.Such a brief profile can be used both to characterize individual junior colleges, and in subsequent research to study the effects of colleges on students more efficiently.The basic technique is a -4- factor analysis of 36 measuresof junior college characteristics.This study, therefore, is largely areplication in a population of juniorcolleges of Astin's (1;62) study offour-year colleges. Procedure Population of Junior Colleges The group of juniorcolleges consisted of 581 accredited,two-year colleges.This group included alljunior colleges for which data are reported in American JuniorColleges (Gleazer, 1963), withthe excep- tion of colleges which areexclusively for the tiling ofpriests, members of religious orders, etc.The sole restriction for inclusionin American Junior Colleges is that thecollege be recognized byregional or state accrediting agencies.Therefore, the group of collegesstudies should be considered the populationof accredited junior colleges,rather than a sample, of somepopulation. Measures of Junior CollegeCharacteristics Thirty-six institutional variables wereselected for study.The choice of variables had twoprimary aims: first, toinclude at least some data forall methods which arecurrently used in characterizing institutions, and, second, toinclude as many as possibleof the variables Astin (1962) used in his studyof four-year colleges.Unless stated otherwise, the informationabout junior collegecharacteristics was obtained from American JuniorColleges (Gleazer, 1963).In most cases the information in thiscompendium was reportedby each junior college for the academic year1961-62. -5- Type Characteristics. Among the mostcommonly used ways of classifying colleges are type of control andcurricular emphasis. The following five measures of these characteristics wereincluded in this study: 1. Private versus Public Control--Public score 0; private score1. 2. Degree of Religious Control--Non-denominational score0; Protestant score 1; Catholic score 2. 3. Liberal Arts Emphasis--No liberal arts curriculum 0,liberal arts plus other curricula 1, liberal artscurriculum only 2. 4.Teacher Training Emphasis--No teacher training 0, teacher training plus other training 1, teacher training only 2. 5. Technical Training Emphasis--No technical school training0, technical training plus other training 1, technical school only2. Financial Characteristics. Measures of five financialcharacter- istics were included.In order to eliminate any correlations due simply to differing sizes of junior colleges, all financialcharacteristics (except tuition) were divided by the junior college's total enrollment thus ex- pressing each measure on a "dollars per student" basis.