Date Awarded

1981

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

Department

Education

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of women's studies courses on the fear of success and locus of control of female college students. The relationship between fear of success and locus of control was also examined.;Subjects for the investigation included: 243 male and female students from The College of William and Mary (128 students) and Old Dominion University (115 students). The treatment group consisted of 153 students enrolled in women's studies courses. The comparison group consisted of 81 students not enrolled in women's studies classes. Both the treatment and comparison groups were pretested and posttested. The test battery included the Cohen Fear of Success questionnaire, the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale, Adult Form (ANS-IE) and a personal data sheet. The pretests were administered at the beginning of the academic term and posttests at the conclusion of the term.;The results of this investigation include the following findings: (1) The hypothesis that treatment by women's studies would show a significant decrease in fear of success (FOS) for female college students as measured by the Cohen Fear of Success questionnaire could neither be accepted nor rejected. Six women's studies classes were tested in this study. The female mean scores of three classes decreased in the anticipated direction. However, only two of the three classes showed decreases that reached the 0.05 level of significance. The female mean scores of the other three classes increased. However, they did not reach the 0.05 level of significance. (2) The hypothesis that female students enrolled in women's studies would show a significant decrease in external locus of control as measured by the ANS-IE could be neither accepted nor rejected. The locus of control of females enrolled in one women's studies class showed a significant decrease in the anticipated direction. However, the mean scores for the other classes either increased or decreased. The changes did not reach statistical significance. (3) The FOS mean for females was 30.3140 and the male mean was 26.5806. Thus, a significant difference between the female and male mean scores was found. (4) The difference between the male and female mean scores of the ANS-IE was not statistically significant. (5) There was a significant positive correlation between FOS and locus of control. (6) There was no significant difference in pretest scores between females in the experimental and comparison group as measured by Cohen's Fear of Success questionnaire, indicating no evidence of self selection on this variable. The test results suggest that there may be an instructor and/or course content interaction which may account for the changes in the scores rather than a uniform treatment.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.25774/w4-83rn-x537

Rights

© The Author

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