A comparison of work ethic descriptors among technical college advisory committee members, instructors, and students

by 1955- Tydings, Flora Wilhite

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceived importance of work ethic descriptors of technical college advisory committee members, instructors, and students to aid in work ethic curriculum planning and subsequent instruction. Data was collected using the Occupational Work Ethic Inventory (OWEI) with a revised stem. The independent variable for this study was the position of respondents. The dependent variables were the four dimensions of occupational work ethic represented by the subgroups on the OWEI of dependable, considerate, ambitious, and cooperative. The population for this study consisted of members of a technical college in the South East. A purposive sample was taken from advisory committee members, faculty and students of the selected college, comprising a sample that was believed to be representative of the population. The methodology used for this research was parameter estimation. This type of research is conducted on samples to estimate the level of one or more population characteristics. A survey instrument was utilized to obtain the data used in the estimation. Data analysis involved both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the demographic data information on the sample. A series of one way analysis of variance procedures were used to determine whether there was a significant difference between the means on the OWEI subscale scores. The Scheffe` post-hoc test was conducted to control for experiment-wise error rate and reveal where group differences fell. The results indicated a discrepancy between advisory committee members, students, and faculty on all four subgroups of the OWEI. Whereas faculty and students were most aligned in their perceived level on the subscales of dependable, ambitious, and cooperative, they did differ on their perceived level of considerate. Recommendations for future study include replication of this study utilizing all of the technical colleges within the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education. Also, indications were clear that advisory committee members, faculty, and students need to be actively and continuously involved in the work ethic curriculum development process.