The examination of vocational values of the 8th, 9th and 11th grades students interms of different variables

SUMMARY The purpose of this study is to determine whether the occupational value preference levels (OVPL) of 8., 9. and 1 1th grade students differ according to grade, socio-economical status (SES) and gender. The study performed on 8. grade students from Kamil Ocak Primary School and 9. and 1 1th grade students from Aktepe Lycee, at Keçiören, Ankara. The sample consisted of 158 8th grade students, 172 9th grade students and 170 11th grade students. In this study, it is used Occupational Value Ranking Scale (OVRS) to determine OVPL and SES scale to determine SES. OVRS consists of 66 forced- choice items which there are 12 items related to 12 occupational values, each paired with all other values and included randomly 9 (repeated) items selected among these items. SES scale includes the socio-economical and socio-cultural informations on the students themselves and their families. First, the students are asked to answer OVRS. Thus, the possible supportedness in replying the scale is removed. As different for each grade, the data sorted and accounted according to the informations in SES scale, then the students classified according to their SES levels and F matrixes indicating the preferred times counts of each values to each other values are prepared. After Z-values corresponding into t-values calculated from F matrices determined, the means values of these z-values and the scores of differences between each means and the lowest means are calculated. These scores are indicators of the distance of each values from each other values. These scores which are calculated according to all variables (grade, gender and SES), ranked from highest preferred to lowest preferred and the preference rankings of the students in the group are composed. These found rankings are commented with Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient (rho). mOn OVPL according to grades of the students, it is found that 8., 9. ve 1 1th grade students' OVPL's are similar, but this similarity decreases 8. and 1 1th grades. On OVLP according to genders of the students, it is found the significant difference between only male and female students' OVLP's at 11th grade. It is not found the significant differences all other students' OVLP's. IV