Identification of Selection Variables Associated with Years of Schooling Achieved.

The relationship between pre-existing differences in student attitudes, values, personality, and length of school career is examined in this research report. A sample of 2,790 students who in 1967 were enrolled as freshmen in seven urban and suburban, public and parochial school systems in southern New York completed a questionnaire during their freshman year, sophomore year, senior year, and one year after graduation. Sub-samples were defined in terms of educational status after completion of high school including four-year college students, two-year college students, terminal high school students, and dropouts. Comparisons between the four sub-samples were made according to status background and intelligence, educational career variables, scholastic attitude variables, and self-reference variables. The data confirmed that individuals now in four-year colleges scored higher on the selected variables than those in two-year colleges, who in turn scored higher than terminal high school students, who in turn scored higher than dropouts. Such differences in scores existed not only as recently as the senior year of high school but as early as the freshman year. The findings suggest that pre-existing differences influence the length of formal schooling. (Author/DE)