Chance experiences and interest structure. Primary data on choice behavior of first-year students.

Research Questions/Hypotheses:

Research Design:

Fully Standardized Survey Instrument (provides question formulation and answer options); single measurement

Measurement Instruments/Apparatus:

Measuring the involvement of chance in a college student's choice of major using a random inventory: Statements that represent 9 different forms of random experiences were presented. The 9 experiences spanned both the target (Alternative, emotion knowledge) and source (person, event, information) objectives. The subjects first indicated whether they had personally experienced the respective random experiences (no former experience was indicated with a 0). Random experiences were then sorted according to their importance (assigning the values 1 to a maximum of 9). The subjectively most important item was then classified in terms of its general importance on a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from "very unimportant" to "very important".
Used an inventory to measure the importance of different aspects of choice when choosing a major: 28 aspects deemed influential on the choice of major were presented. Each of the experiences was weighed on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from "very unimportant" to "very important."
Acquisition of vocational interests according to the Holland's interest model (1985) and the AIST by Bergmann and Eder (1992). 60 activities were presented from different areas of interest. Interest in an activity was assessed using a 5-point scale ranging from "interests me greatly; I really enjoy doing that" to "does not interest me at all; I do not enjoy doing that at all."
Measurement of socio-demographic variables, gender, age, college major, previous vocational training, and previous college studies.
Measurement of certainty that the right choice of college major was made using a 6-point Likert scale ranging from "very unsure" to "very sure."

Data Collection Method:

Data collection in the presence of an experimenter

• Group Administration
• Paper and Pencil

Population:

German freshman college students

Survey Time Period:

October 1992

Sample:

Convenience sample

Gender Distribution:

56,2 % female subjects (n=122)
43,8 % male subjects (n=95)

Age Distribution: 18-34 years

Spatial Coverage (Country/Region/City): Germany/Rhineland-Palatinate/Trier

Subject Recruitment:

The questionnaires were distributed at freshmen orientation held at the Student Counseling Centre of the University of Trier in the Auditorium Maximum and were processed after the event. The event manager pointed the survey out to attending freshman and asked for their cooperation. The event was held across two days and divided according to the various departments of study.

Sample Size:

217 individuals

Return/Drop Out:

A total of 300 questionnaires were issued to volunteers. Of these, 253 (84.3%) were returned. Of these, 36 had to be excluded from further analysis because important information was missing. Thus, the return rate of usable questionnaires was 72.3%.