Study Group Tests Student Values

Life is something to be enjoyed--sensuously enjoyed, enjoyed with relish abandonment."

The quotation is from a Harvard Student Study questionnaire. When thrown at over 300 Harvard freshmen, it elicits responses varying from loud endorsement to emphatic rejection. Student study, a federally-supported research project, is working steadily to collect and analyze these differing opinions and values and to relate them to the student's behavior at Harvard--his grades, his personal relationships, his choice of courses and extra-curricular activities.

Over the summer, Stanley H. King, director of the project, and his assistants decided to extend their work to the Class of '65. A quarter of that class, picked at random, will take 12 hours of written tests and questionnaires during the year, covering everything from concrete views on Cliffies to more abstract questions, such as, "Who Am I?"

Over 600 Participants

The more than 600 participants in the study now include members of the sophomore and junior classes, as well as freshmen. The researchers are following all of them through their four years at the College, analyzing how Harvard changes their attitudes and opinions.

Student Study is one of the first major research efforts concerned with relating student's ideas, values and personality to his college environment.

Supported by a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, King and his assistants began two years ago to work with a small preliminary sample from the Class of '63. Then they moved on to examine a quarter of last year's freshmen. The original plans did not include the Class of '65.

More Data Needed

But plans changed, and King is direct about the reason: "We need more data, to confirm our results with the earlier classes." In extending the project by a year, he is willing to run the risk of being left without research money to complete the survey of the Class of '65 when the Study's five-year grant is used up in 1964.

By that time, King hopes his findings will be significant enough so that there will be no difficulty in discovering a source of funds for the Study's final year.

Few findings have emerged from the Study so far. The work of preparing the questionnaires, coding the answers, and feeding them into an IBM machine for correlation has left little time for analysis. But with data gathered from the Class of '63, the Study has shown a strong relationship between students' values as entering freshmen, their behavior later on at Harvard, and their post-college goals.

On the basis of a test, the seventy students from '62 were divided into two groups, "Traditional" and "Emergent," representing the two competing value systems which some sociologists use to characterize contemporary American society.

The elements of the "Traditional" system include an emphasis on achievement, future-time orientation, independence, and Puritan morality. The Study found that members of this system tend to major in Natural or Social Science, to get fairly uniform grades, and to participate in extra-curricular activities such as athletics, political organizations, religious groups, and service clubs. They frequently rise to extra-curricular offices as early as their sophomore year.

The "T's" also tend to be sure of their future profession, and to subordinate their academic work to occupational goals.

The "Emergents"

"Emergents," on the other hand, emphasize sociability, present-time orientation, conformity, and a relativistic moral attitude. They tend to major in Humanities or Social Science, to get a wide variety of grades, and to join activities like publications and fine arts groups. They are elected to extra-curricular office much less frequently than the "Traditionals."

The "E's" expect many personal changes while they are at Harvard, and are more unsure of their future professions. They less more toward low prestige professions or expressive occupations, rather than high-income work.