Abstract
Fifty-five college women enrolled in competency-based, humanistic or self-directed education programs completed their California Personality Inventory and listed five reasons for selecting their program. CPI results indicated that self-directed students scored lower than other students on the Femininity Scale (p≤.001). Using Chickering's seven vectors of change as a framework, the study found competency-based students identifying “purpose” and “competence,” humanistic students identifying “inter-personal relationships and “integrity,” and self-directed student identifying “autonomy” and “purpose” as reasons for enrolling in their nontraditional programs. The study used these results to question the mythology that adherents to different programs are of different personality types and to argue that differences in perceptions of purpose in education distinguish students in the three programs.
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Clarke, J.H., Smith, M. & Moran, C. Choosing competency-based, humanistic and self-directed programs: The contribution of personality and reasoning. Alternative Higher Education 5, 202–212 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01079560
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01079560