An attitude analysis of Tennessee secondary school counselors toward the community colleges within the state

The image of community/junior colleges has recently become an important concern for the administrators and other personnel formulating plans for the future development of these institutions. To plan effectively, two-year colleges must obtain information, knowledge, and understanding of perceptions held by groups such as high school counselors toward the community/junior college programs. This study focused on the attitudes of Tennessee secondary school counselors toward the community colleges within the state. The primary purpose of the study was to identify existing favorable or unfavorable attitudes of secondary school counselors toward the community colleges within Tennessee. A secondary purpose was to identify any specific categories of respondents which would characterize the most favorable and least favorable groups.

A survey questionnaire was mailed to each of the 389 secondary school counselor members of the Tennessee Personnel and Guidance Association. There were 209 questionnaires returned from which the data were analyzed to achieve the purposes of the study. The survey instrument utilized was developed specifically for the assessment of high school counselor attitudes toward the two-year college by James (l969) and has been used in other studies of this type.

Findings of the study were that: the respondents held strong favorable attitudes toward the community colleges of Tennessee; direct contact such as a visit to a campus or having been a former student at a two-year college were important factors in the favorableness of attitudes held by respondents; and significantly more favorable attitudes were held by the older counselors with the trend indicating that secondary level experience also affected the favorableness. It was also determined that such factors as sex, present assignment, highest degree earned, distance and geographic location of the counselor's school from the nearest community college, and whether or not they had taken a course dealing with the two-year college concept were not significant characteristics in the favorable and unfavorable attitudes held by the respondents.

Recommendations based upon the results of the study were that: community college personnel take advantage of the favorable attitudes by providing counselors with more and better information related to instruction, philosophy, and competence of the staff; community college administrators recognize the merits of direct contact opportunities for secondary counselors to become more familiar with the institution; and plans should be developed and programs implemented which will improve the attitudes held by the young counselors who were the least favorable. A number of future research recommendations were provided which would enhance the future community college development by providing additional research data concerning the attitudes held toward community colleges.