Student Characteristics And Choice Of High School Remembrance Role

Adolescence, Summer, 1999 by Alyce Holland, Thomas Andre

Function 3 accounted for only 8.8% of the explained variance and seemed to differentiate students choosing to be remembered as brilliant students from students choosing to be remembered as leaders in activities or as most popular. The univariate ANOVA conducted on Function 3 confirmed this impression, F(3,408) = 7.30, p [less than] .0001. The Tukey/Kramer post hoe test revealed that the leader in activities and most popular remembrance role groups differed significantly from the brilliant student group. The star athlete group did not significantly differ from any of the three other groups. The variables that contributed to the discrimination provided by Function 3 were: mother's education, total social activity participation, high school academic rank, and size of high school. To a lesser degree, father's marital status also contributed to the separation of groups. Students who preferred the role of leader in activities or most popular had mothers who had significantly greater levels of education than did those who selected the role of brilliant student. Those who selected brilliant student had significantly higher academic status than did those who chose most popular. Individuals preferring the brilliant student role were more likely to come from intact families and from smaller schools than were those selecting most popular.

The results of the classification analysis, which tests the accuracy of the derived functions to correctly classify the eases in the analysis, indicated that, overall, the three LDFs classified 51.7% of the cases correctly. The functions were best at classifying group membership for students who selected athletic star (66.1%). The LDFs were less accurate for the other three groups: 47.3% of the individuals selecting brilliant student, 46.1% of those selecting most popular, and 44.2% of those selecting leader in activities were correctly classified.

DISCUSSION

The major purpose of the present study was to examine personality and social characteristics that related to adolescents' choice of high school remembrance role. Coleman (1961) first used remembrance roles to assign status to high school students. A different question was asked here: Which variables differentiated remembrance role groups?

Star athlete roles. As a group, individuals who selected the star athlete remembrance role tended to be male, high in sports participation, low in social activity participation, high in masculinity, low in high school rank, and more traditional in their attitudes toward women.

Leader in activities role. As a group, individuals who preferred the leader in activities role tended to be high in self-esteem, high in masculinity, and high in social activities participation. To a lesser extent, they tended to have more educated mothers.

Brilliant student role. As a group, individuals who wanted to be remembered as brilliant students tended to be high in high school rank, more nontraditional in their attitudes toward women, more likely to be female, and had mothers with low levels of education. To a lesser extent, they were more likely to come from smaller schools.