| This study analyzed an extant body of data consisting of a survey of 437 psychology majors at San Jose State University. The literature on student motivation of undergraduate psychology majors suggests that: (a) females choose psychology more for vocational reasons than men; (b) females, more than males, intend to use psychology in a helping profession; and (c) scholastically superior psychology majors tend to be more interested in the scientific dimensions of the discipline than its applications. These hypotheses were tested by chi-square analyses but in each case the factors were found to be independent of each other. In addition, the relationship of seven student characteristics to two motives for entering psychology (vocational interest vs. interest in psychology as a liberal art) was studied using two-group discriminant analysis. Only one variable, ethnicity, was shown to differentiate between the two motives, Hispanics being more likely than Caucasians or Asians to be interested in psychology as a liberal art. |
