A differential study of the security level and level of self-confidence of professional and average students

This differential study was designed to determine whether professional students are less secure and less self-confident than average students. Maslow's Security-Insecurity Inventory, a modified version of Gough's Adjective Check List, and a questionnaire devised by the author were administered to 28 randomly selected California State University, Hayward seniors. Spearman Rank Correlations were computed yielding significant results at the .05 level and below for the following: l) level of security with number of units completed; 2) level of self-confidence with grade point average; 3) self-confidence with security. T-tests were performed between the mean scores of professional and average students on both instruments yielding a significant difference at the .01 level for the Security-Insecurity Inventory, although there was not any significant difference (value above .05) between their scores on the self-confidence scale of the 76 adjective check list (a modified version of the Gough Adjective Check List). It was concluded that professional students are significantly less secure than average students but are not leas self-confident. This may be due, in part, to the fact that the mean age of professional students was 25.8 while the mean age of average students was 20.4. Also, the professional students tended to be more financially and emotionally independent than average students.