Harold F. Cottingham

THE EFFECTS OF COUNSELING LOW-ABILITY, HIGH-ASPIRING COLLEGE FRESHMEN

Forty students who entered the Florida State University in the fall of 1963 who had defined educational aspirations and relatively low academic ability were identified. Thirty-five of these students freely volunteered to participate in the study, and were randomly assigned to an experimental (counseled) group and a control (noncounseled) group. Each subject stated his educational aspiration before and after counseling. This aspiration was rated both times by three counselor-judges on the basis of ability, interest, personality test data, high school transcripts and other personal data. The counseled group received counseling during a three-month period. Both groups started out with initial pre-counseling educational aspirations that were inappropriate as rated, but the counseled group showed significant increases in appropriateness while the control group did not. The California Test of Personality did not reveal any differences before or after counseling, nor were there any significant differences among the change in scores. It was concluded that the results of this study (significant increases in appropriateness of educational aspiration) can more closely be attributed to the treatment variable (counseling) since data and information about other important influencing variables were either controlled for, or at least ascertained. Both groups volunteered for the study. The groups did not differ significantly in academic ability as measured by the SCAT. The control group did not receive what could be considered a great amount of outside professional help. And, as measured by the California Test of Personality, both groups were apparently comparable as to personality adjustment.