ABSTRACT
The measure of educational aspiration was taken from the Vocational Questionnaire administered to the subjects at age 13. A one-way analysis of variance was employed to test whether or not the means of the age-13 ability/adaptation subgroups differed significantly on educational aspiration. Post host analyses were assessed using Duncan multiple range tests of the significant differences between all pairs of means. Initial examination of these clusters revealed that they discriminated among students on the basis of their selection of the most, the second most, or the least theoretically oriented group of optional subjects for the following grade. In contrast to the consistency between academically oriented choices and high aspiration displayed among the highest achievers, normal achievers who underestimated their ability and normal achievers who were moderately low-adapted were significantly overrepresented in patterns that reflected a certain disparity between choices and aspiration.
