Masters Theses

Date of Award

6-1983

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Sociology

Major Professor

Michael Betz

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discover the influence of significant others, social support, and previous experience upon the nontraditional occupational choosers and their choice. There were four samples in this study: male nurses, female nurses, female engineers, male engineers. By studying these four samples I have accounted for more sources of variation than in previous studies on nontraditional occupation choosers. There were a total of 81 respondents. These respondents were selected through the use of systematic sampling.

A 27-item, self-administered questionnaire was used to gather The majority of the questionnaires were distributed at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville. An additional sample of male nursing students was gathered from the teaching hospitals in Knoxville. The major conclusion of this study was twofold, the use of social psychological variables to explain the choice of First, nontraditional occupation choosers holds promise. Such social psychological variables as role models, reference individuals, and gender orientation do fill the gap between the socio-cultural model of occupational choice and actual behavior. The second finding concerns sex differences. Previous studies have usually only dealt with one occupation and one nontraditional student. As a result, they have identified differences which they assumed were between traditional and nontraditional students. I found that some of these differences could best be ascribed to sex differences, not choice differences.

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