Early graduate school plans: Uninformed expectations?

Journal of College Student Development, Nov/Dec 1998 by Rajecki, D W, Lauer, Joan B, Metzner, Barbara S

Sixty-seven percent of a sample of 207 incoming psychology majors voiced plans for graduate school in the field. However, individuals' knowledge of admissions requirements, and own GPAs were not correlated with choice of the advanced degree option, each variable accounting for no more than 1% of the variance in such plans.

Our paper has to do with factors that student affairs practitioners should keep in mind when working with students who might be interested in graduate school. These are matters of considerable scope: a national survey showed that an advanced degree was in the future plans of 83% of all undergraduate alumni (Steinberg, 1994). However, widespread graduate school plans are already in place well before graduation. Another national survey indicated that about 65% of all freshmen aspired to an advanced degree (Astin, Parrot, Korn, & Sax, 1997). Similarly, a departmental survey of incoming psychology majors found that about 61% voiced plans for psychology graduate school (Metzner, Rajecki, & Lauer, 1994).

A substantial portion of these aspirants will probably not attain their postgraduate goals. Therefore, two issues should be addressed at the national level and across all fields: why do so many individuals entertain such plans, and what do they understand about real opportunities forand barriers to-advanced preparation?

In the meantime, we report a useful pilot study concerning the second of the above points. We offer a method for the investigation of the strength of association between certain undergraduates' (a) postgraduate educational plans, and (b) their knowledge of probable admissions requirements, and personal academic qualifications.

The study involved newly-declared psychology majors. Questionnaire items included career plans following graduation, and students' estimates of grade point requirements for entering graduate school. Further, we sought links between questionnaire responses, and individuals' academic histories. Using transcript information, a correlational approach determined whether the variables of own psychology grade point and hours of psychology course work (among others) were predictive of the career plan of psychology graduate school.

METHOD

Sampling and Sources of Information Respondents were undergraduates with any college credits who formally declared the psychology major at a midwestern urban university over a 14-month period beginning in mid-1995.

A study sample total of 345 students (including 83 men) gained admission during the screening period. Each successful applicant received a mailing-addressed to her or him personally-that contained a two-page, 16-item questionnaire and a stamped envelope for return mail. If the questionnaire did not return within a month, we sent a duplicate reminder packet. Based on the initial mailing and relevant followups, 207 usable questionnaires returned, an overall rate of 60%.

Official transcripts on hand provided several types of data, including students' overall psychology grade point average, number of hours of psychology completed anywhere, and age.

Questionnaire Items

In addition to selected information taken from students' academic records, only certain questionnaire items are relevant to the issues at hand. The order in which those items appear here is not necessarily their order in the instrument.

Plans. One question asked: "What are your plans right after you graduate with a 4-year degree in psychology?" A list of response categories included "psychology graduate school," "hospital," "other graduate school," and eight others (including "business/corporation") that replicated the slots found in Metzner et al. (1994, Table 4). Respondents could select up to three choices from the 11 categories in the list.

Grade Point Considerations. Two items examined views concerning grade point average (GPA). One of these inquired whether it is "important to you to have a very high grade point average in college," scored on a 7-point bipolar scale (agree = 7, disagree = 1). Another GPA item asked respondents to provide a numerical value-from 2.00 to 4.00-regarding what sort of minimum grade point average would it take "to get into" a psychology graduate school in the state.

Transcript Information

For each student, we calculated a GPA for all completed psychology courses (including duplications) having letter grades of A, B, C, D, or F. Concerning total psychology hours, we included any course completed at any institution. Age (rounded to years) was the difference between a student's date of birth and date of departmental acceptance.

RESULTS

Characteristics of Questionnaire Responders The 207 students (46 men) who responded had completed an average of 9.20 hours of psychology courses, including 5.69 (62%) taken on this campus. Their average GPA for total psychology hours was 3.11, and average age was 26.0 years. Regarding transfer credits from elsewhere, 95 students in this group (46%) had such courses, completed at 53 other institutions or campuses.