1250 - SEFI

Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010, 19 th - 22 nd September 2010, Trnava, Slovakia
Data on orientation were collected using the Person-Thing Orientation Scale
originally developed by Little [11] and revised and validated by Graziano, Habashi,
Ngambeki, & Evangelou [15]. Data regarding career interest were collected using the
Occupational Scale [16]. Demographic information was also obtained from all
participants. For the US sample, data were collected using an electronic survey. For
the Greek and Turkish samples data were collected using paper surveys. In the
Greek and Turkish contexts all scales were translated into the language and back
into English and expert feedback was sought on the validity of term equivalency.
Scales were scored and data analyzed using common statistical methods.
3. Results
The results revealed that males were higher than females in thing orientation in all
three contexts, while females scored higher than males in person orientation in all
three contexts. Table 2 below shows the distribution of person and thing orientation
by sex in the three samples.
Table 2: Person and thing orientation means by sex (SD in brackets)
Person Orientation Thing Orientation
Male Female Male Female
Greece 2.8(.57) 3.21(.65) 3.19(.81) 2.74(.73)
Turkey 1.96(.68) 2.49(.58) 2.00(.73) 1.71(.78)
United States 2.10(.69) 2.49(.61) 2.30(.78) 1.71(.79)
Students in the Greek sample scored uniformly higher in both person and thing
orientation than the other two samples. Contrary to the US sample, neither Greek nor
Turkish female students differed from their male counterparts in TO. However, Greek
and Turkish female students reported significantly higher PO than males.
The results also revealed that STEM students were higher than non-STEM students
in TO in all three contexts. Analyses also revealed a main effect of major in the
Turkish context (F (1, 193) = 36.14, p