Values Preferences by Gender forNontraditional College Students Between

1992 and 1982

WILLIAM BENNETTRONALD STADTJOSEPH KARMOS

This study compared gender trends for self-reported work values of 384 nontraditional col­lege students in 1982 and 335 different nontraditional collegestudents in 1992. Results measuredby D. Nevill and D. E. Super's (1989) Values Scale indicated that female values preferencesmoved toward Altruism and Variety and away from Autonomy and Advancement. Male valuespreferences remained relatively constant, except for a significant drop in Aesthetics. The mostimportant finding was that there were many more similarities than differences in men's andwomen's values preferences for both 1982 and 1992. The top 3 rankings for both years wereidentical: Economic Security, Achievement, and Ability Utilization.

Prior to 1970, work values were considered predominantly masculine: per­sistence and drive, aggressiveness, emotional detachment, advancement,and status and prestige. Women who chose career over family were viewedas the antithesis of femininity and were regarded as deviant for not pursu­ing nurturing values such as social relationships and affiliation (Yogev, 1983).

Since 1975, women have been entering the workforce in greater numbersthan ever before for a variety of reasons: increased life expectancy, smallerfamilies, advanced technology, divorce, and the human potential movement(Saunders, 1991; Yogev, 1983). These increases have brought about changesin beliefs regarding sex role stereotypes and the roles of women in theworkplace. Now, work commitment is often perceived as a product of theinterplay of an individual's perceptions, expectations, and values withinthe work environment, rather than gender-related traits and goals acquiredthrough socialization early in life (Fiorentine, 1988). Advocates of this oc­cupational socialization view argue that, when subjected to the same occu­pational experiences, men's and women's work-related attitudes and valueswill converge over time (Gomez-Mejia, 1983). Yates (1985) continued thisline of research that strongly influenced our work. Two questions addressedby Yates that we also examined in this study were the following: What changes

William Bennett is director of Instructional Resources, Ronald Stadt is a professor in theDepartment of Workforce Education and Development, and Joseph Karmos is a professor inthe Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education at Southern Illinois Uni­versity. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Joseph Karmos, De­partment of Educational Psychology and Special Education, Southern Illinois University,Carbondale, IL 62911.

246 Counseling and Values / Apri/1997 / Vol. 41

have occurred in men's work values over the past decade? What changeshave occurred for women?

METHOD

Participants

For 20 years, the Department of Workforce Education and Development atSouthern Illinois University has conducted a baccalaureate degree programon military bases. The total enrollment is usually about 950 students persemester. Approximately two-thirds of the students are military personneland one-third are civilians. To reflect these proportions, in 1992, a stratifiedsample of 381 students was asked to provide data for this study. Of thistotal, 335 (88%) voluntarily participated and provided usable responses.These responses were compared with Yates's (1990) 1982 group of 384 stu­dents selected from this same program (see Table 1). The reader should notethat in the age category of 18-25 years, there were about three times as manyparticipants for 1982 as for 1992. This is likely due to the decreased workforceneeds of the military during the decade.

Measures

The Values Scale (Super & Nevill, 1986) is a self-report instrument that con­sists of 105 items measuring 21 different values, 5 items for each value. The21 values are (1) Ability Utilization, (2) Achievement, (3) Advancement, (4)

TABLE 1

Demographics

1982 1992

Measure Male Female Total Male Female Total

RaceWhite 235 41 276 199 57 256African American 53 12 65 42 11 53Hispanic American 19 4 23 16 2 18Others 14 6 20 5 3 8

Total 321 63 384 262 73 335Age (years)

18-25 79 16 95 26 7 3326-35 150 29 179 135 38 17336-45 76 14 90 86 25 11146-65 15 4 19 15 3 18Over 65 1 0 1 0 0 0

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Aesthetics, (5) Altruism, (6) Authority, (7) Autonomy, (8) Creativity, (9) Eco­nomic Rewards, (10) Life Style, (11) Personal Development, (12) PhysicalActivity, (13) Prestige, (14) Risk, (15) Social Interaction, (16) Social Relations,(17) Variety, (18) Working Conditions, (19) Cultural Identity, (20) PhysicalProwess, and (21) Economic Security. The stem and five rating items forAbility Utilization typify the instrument's format:

Stem: It is now or will in the future be important for me to:Item 1. Use all my skills and knowledge.Item 2. Do work that takes advantage of my abilities.Item 3. Develop my abilities.Item 4. Keep on learning new things at work.Item 5. Have to think about what I am doing at work.

A Likert-style rating scale is used for each item, where 1 = little or no im­portance and 4 = very important. A respondent's score on a five-item valuepreference such as Ability Utilization can range from 5 to 20. The lower thetotal point score, the less important a value is to the respondent.

The Values Scale was the product of the Work Importance Study (WIS),an informal consortium of autonomous research teams in a dozen countriesin Europe, North America, Australia, Asia, and Africa (Super & Nevill, 1986).The scale measures a comprehensive sample of values compiled by WISliterature review and research. The Values Scale is available in 10 differentlanguages with norms for 12 countries. According to Nevill and Super (1989),it has been administered in the United States to 2,816 high school students,2,140 university students, and 1,836 other adults.

Two measures of reliability were computed for the Values Scale: (a) inter­nal consistency (alpha coefficients) for high school, university, and otheradult samples and (b) stability (test-retest over a 2- to 4-week period) foruniversity students. The alpha coefficients were generally above .65 for allthree samples (Nevill & Super, 1989). For the 21 values subscales, the test­retest values were around .86.

Internal validity of the Values Scale was first developed by following properitem development procedures. As specified by Nevill and Super (1989), thosesteps consisted of (a) reviewing the values literature of each participating country;(b) studying the derived lists of values; (c) equating categories with similarmeanings and eliminating duplication; (d) writing definitions in small cross­national working groups; and (e) reviewing the definitions in the general meetingof WISproject directors. To assure generalizability, members from at least twocountries of different cultures worked on the same value rating scale. All itemswere then reviewed in plenary cross-national meetings before being adoptedin final form. According to Ehrick and Weiner (1961) and Mclaughlin (1965),for this instrument, there is generally stability and consistency in values.

Procedure

During the fall semester of the 1992-1993 academic year, the Values Scale(Nevill & Super, 1989) was used to measure the self-reported values of adults

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enrolled in an off-campus baccalaureate degree program conducted by South­ern Illinois University on eight Air Force and seven Navy bases throughoutthe contiguous United States. These values were compared with those col­lected by Yates (1985, 1990) from students enrolled in the same off-campusprogram during the 1982-1983 academic year. Work valueswere defined asan individual's needs and priorities and consequent personal dispositionand orientation to work roles that have the perceived capacity to satisfythose needs and priorities (Pine & Innis, 1987).

Analysis

Two questions provided the framework for this study: What are the valuespreferences for (a) 1982 male versus 1992 male respondents? (b) 1982 fe­male versus 1992 female respondents? For these two questions, only thosevalues having a ranking change of at least two places from 1982 to 1992were analyzed. Yates (1985) judged that a two-place ranking change wouldyield stronger implications into real workplaces.

To determine if men's and women's self-reported values preferenceschanged from 1982 to 1992, we computed means and standard devia­tions for each of the 21 values subscales. For ranking changes of two ormore, differences for the 1982 and 1992 groups were analyzed by usingt-test procedures and the Bonferroni inequality adjustment to controlfor inflation in the Type I error rate (a = .05). To analyze changes withingenders between 1982 and 1992, we compared the male-female rankingsof the 21 values for 1982 to the male-female rankings for 1992. For ex­ample, in 1982 women ranked Economic Rewards sixth, whereas in 1992they ranked it fifth.

The ranking for each value was derived from the mean of its five ratingitems. For example, the highest ranked value by men in 1992 was EconomicSecurity (M = 17.27), whereas the lowest ranked value was Physical Prow­ess (M = 8.40). The means and standard deviations for both 1982 and 1992can be obtained from the authors.

RESULTS

Between the 1992 and 1982 Groups

Table 2 displays the priority rankings of male and female respondents inboth the 1992 and 1982 groups. In general, the values preferences of the1982 respondents were similar to the values preferences of the 1992respondents.

Values preferences of male respondents in the 1992 group were virtuallyidentical to the values preferences of male respondents in the 1982 group.One difference was evident. Male respondents in the 1992 group rankedAesthetics lower than did male respondents in the 1982 group.

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TABLE 2

Summary of Values Preferences Priority RankingsDerived From Means of Gender Groups

1992-1993 Academic Year 1982-1983 Academic Year

Male Female Male FemaleValues (n = 262) (n = 73) (n=321) (n = 63)

Ability utilization 3 3 3 3Achievement 2 2 2 2Advancement 6 8 6 5Aesthetics 16 12 14 12Altruism 11 6 10 9Authority 13 15 12 14Autonomy 8 10 8 8CreatiVity 9 11 9 11Economic rewards 4 5 4 6Lifestyle 7 7 7 7Personal development 5 4 5 4Physical activity 17 19 17 19Prestige 12 13 13 13Risk 20 20 20 20Social interaction 18 17 18 18Social relations 15 16 16 15Variety 14 14 15 16Working conditions 10 9 11 10Cultural identity 19 18 19 17Physical prowess 21 21 21 21Economic security 1 1 1 1

Values preferences of female respondents in the 1992 group were similarto the values preferences of female respondents in the 1982 group. Onlyfour differences were evident in priority rankings where ranking levelschanged by two or more. Female respondents in the 1992 group rankedAltruism and Variety higher and Advancement and Autonomy lower thanfemale respondents in the 1982 group.

SUMMARY

1982 versus 1992 male respondents. For those values preferences for malerespondents showing a difference in rank of at least two in Table 2, t testswere done on the means from the five rating items. The only significantranking change was for Aesthetics (13.78in 1982;12.79 in 1992), which moved

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from 14th in 1982 to 16th in 1992. Therefore, in the 10-year period from 1982to 1992, male values preferences changed little except for the diminishedimportance of making things more beautiful.

1982 versus 1992 female respondents. For those values preferences for fe­male respondents showing a difference in rank of at least two in Table 2, ttests were done on the means. Significant changes occurred for four valuespreferences. Advancement (16.90 in 1982; 15.40 in 1992) fell from a rankingof 5th in 1982 to 8th in 1992.Autonomy (15.98 in 1982;15.05 in 1992) droppedfrom 8th in 1982 to 10th in 1992. Altruism (15.94 in 1982; 16.11 in 1992) rosefrom a ranking of 9th in 1982 to 6th in 1992. Variety (13.51 in 1982; 14.01 in1992) climbed from 16th in 1982 to 14th in 1992.

Thus, in the lO-year period from 1982 to 1992, female values preferencesportrayed an increased concern for helping others with problems and alsohaving everyday be different from the one before. There was a decrease inthe importance of getting ahead and acting on one's own.

DISCUSSION

Women in our study did not seem to be pursuing the typically masculinestereotypes of career success: status and independence (Tannen, 1990). Al­truism and Aesthetics were more important to women, and it is notewor­thy that the latter was the only value showing a substantial decline for menbetween 1982 and 1992. Women's preferences for Autonomy and Advance­ment, often considered to be male-oriented values, declined. The "1992woman" appeared to be distancing herself from some male values prefer­ences of the early 1980s. However, the most important finding in this studywas unexpected. There were many more similarities than differences in men'sand women's values preferences in 1982, in 1992, and between 1982 and1992. The top three rankings for men and women for these years were iden­tical: Economic Security, Achievement, and Ability Utilization. This con­vergence of values over the lO-year period is supported by the work ofGomez-Mejia (1983).

There was also an unusual consistency from 1982 to 1992 in women'svariability in responses to each of the 21 values. Without exception for ev­ery value, women's responses in 1992 were more variable than in 1982. Whatcould account for this? For one thing, there were 10 more women sampledin 1992. Another reason could be that, with increasing numbers of womenin the workforce, the variability in values preferences would likely increase.Finally, the clarity of roles for mother, wife, and breadwinner has dimmed,and this could have contributed to the increased variability over the de­cade. But it still was a surprise to us that women's variability increased foreveryone of the 21 values.

The core of this study did not look at the values differences between menand women; nevertheless, the unexpected similarities were apparent from

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the data. But even with these similarities, four differences need to be con­sidered: Personal Development, Altruism, Working Conditions, and Aes­thetics. For each of these, women ranked them higher than men. These areall reflective of Herzberg's (1987) work of why people stay at a particularcompany. People stay for certain reasons but leave for different reasons. Itappears from the present study that how to keep women with a companyhas a different profile of values than how to keep men. Thus the"one sizefits all" approach to the workplace needs to be replaced by options to ac­commodate differences in values, needs, and interests of today's workforce.

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Gomez-Mejia, L. R. (1983). Sex differences during occupational socialization. Academy ofMan­agement Journal, 26, 492-499.

Herzberg, F. (1987). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Re­view, 65, 109-120.

Mclaughlin, G. (1965). Values in behavioral science. Journal of Religion and Health, 4, 258-279.

Nevill, D. D., & Super, D. E. (1989). The Values Scale: Theory, application, and research. Palo Alto,CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Pine, G. J., & Innis, G. (1987). Cultural and individual work values. The Career DevelopmentQuarterly, 35, 279-287.

Saunders, N. C. (1991). Outlook: 1900-2005. The U.S. economy into the 21st century. MonthlyLabor Review, 114(11), 13-44.

Super, D. E., & Nevill, D. D. (1986). The Values Scale. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting PsychologistsPress.

Tannen, D. (1990). You just don't understand. New York: Ballantine Books.

Yates, L. (1985). The Values Scale: Assessment of adults involved in career development. Unpub­lished manuscript.

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