Perseverance Versus Nonperseverance Patterns Among Adult High School Students

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Parsons' instrumental internal-external model for classifying action orientations provided the theoretical base to test the relation between perseverance and nonperseverance patterns among sub samples of 134 adults in an adult high school. Preference for internally or externally oriented goals, as reasons for enrollment, were obtained from a questionnaire and crosstabulated by per severance (persons who enroll and complete the program) and nonperseverance (persons who enroll, attend a few classes, but fail to complete course requirements). Tabular multivariate analysis elaborated the bivariate distributions to determine the relation between external goal preferences and perseverance, and internal goal preferences and nonperseverance. Perseverers typically rated the external goals as a higher rather than lower reason for enroll ment. The internal-nonperseverance relation was partly confirmed. Spurious noncorrelations within the contingent associations indi cated shifts from internal to external preferences as one ages and faces the demands of the work world.