Modified: 2021-10-04
Abstract
Conducted an archival analysis of 1429 student bucket list items collected in Honors Seminar as a class assignment since 2010. Analyzed the differences in male (N = 132) and female (N = 194) students in six post hoc derived categories: Domestic, Thrill Seeking, Career/Achievement, Service, Personal, and Travel. The results for each category were analyzed by the Chi-Square for Goodness of Fit. Surprisingly, except for Thrill Seeking, which showed no statistically significant difference, females exceeded males significantly in all remaining categories. Results provide useful information for honors deans, directors, staff, and faculty.
The verbatim lists are available at: http://sauhc.blogspot.com. Just click on "Bucket List" to view.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Results
The six categories were analyzed using the Chi-Square Goodness of Fit test. All of the categories showed a statistically significant difference (p < 0.01) except for Thrill Seeking. Furthermore, in all of the remaining categories females scored significantly higher than males.
[David: note the italics in the following results]
Domestic c2(1,
N = 125) = 7.2, p < 0.01
Career/ACH c2(1, N = 316) =
23.96, p < 0.01
Service c2(1,
N = 98) = 22.54, p < 0.01
Personal c2(1,
N = 328) = 23.22, p < 0.01
Travel c2(1,
N = 332) = 16.94, p < 0.01
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
The movie The Bucket List, released in 2007, was the inspiration for an
assignment in our Honors Seminar classIn part, the instructions were:
Your task is to come up with YOUR own
bucket list and to write about it in 300 words. See: http://sauhc.blogspot.com/search/label/Bucket%20List
for examples from your Honors College predecessors.
Be
serious as you prepare and write your first drafts. Your final drafts will also
be published on our blog. David and I will use your bucket lists in the future
when we recall your career here and write letters of support for you. Future
employers will discover your bucket lists after they search you out on the
Internet.
One of us (Morehead), transferred the
individual items from each student's list to an Excel file. Later, she looked
at each item and classified it into one of six groups: Domestic, Thrill Seeking, Career/Achievement, Service, Personal, and Travel. Our handout lists individual
items category and gender. Because of small N,
we chose not to analyze our international students as a separate category.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussion
Females exceeded males in all
categories save one, Thrill Seeking. It
intuitively makes sense that males and female honors students would seek to
bungee jump or skydive, to swim with sharks, or to climb Mt. Everest.
Career/Achievement
was probably the least expected result. Traditional beliefs maintain that men
are more career and success oriented than women. Perhaps women who seek honors
education run counter to popular stereotypes.
Women desired Travel more than men. Popular destinations for both men and women
included: Europe, Australia, and the world in general.
For Service
was troubling because few men listed that category. Given that service is one
of the legs of the honors stool, directors and deans should be cognizant of
this result.
Females listed
Domestic topics more than men. Both
listed topics related to marriage, family, and children nearly equally.
Personal
showed the widest variety of topics. Females listed items from attending
specific cultural or sporting events, through learning to play musical
instruments, to meeting famous people. Males listed items such as owning
specific vehicles, playing professional sports, and writing books.
This analysis has given us new and
additional insights into to minds of our students and revealed places, e.g., Service, where more effort is needed on
our part to inculcate a desire to serve others, particularly in our male
students.
We plan to follow up with our graduates,
asking them to reveal whether they have achieved any of the goals the listed
when they were first year students.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------