This study examines personal problems which a selected group of 1970's college freshmen at North Texas State University considered important to them and investigates significant changes in the nature, configuration, and frequency of these problems from those indicated by selected freshmen of the 1960's and 1950's. None of the wide variety of previous approaches over the years in studying problems of students has presented such a broad time span as this study. The students of the 1950's and 1960's were North Texas State University freshmen enrolled in Education 161, "The Psychology of Social and Personal Adjustment." The 1970's population was taken from basic freshman English courses at North Texas State University. All students were administered the Mooney Problem Check List, and the results were prepared for computer analysis. An analysis-of-variance program was used on eight hypotheses, with a .05 level of significance required for the hypotheses to be retained. The Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient was used in answering two hypotheses. There were 2,809 freshmen from the 1950's, 1,440 from the 1960's, and 695 from the 1970's.

The purpose of this study was to identify the major problem areas of freshmen community college students and to determine if significant differences in problems of freshmen students existed as a variable of age, sex, or marital status. The population consisted of 674 community college students enrolled in an Orientation to College program during the fall or spring semester of 1976, 1977, 1978 or 1979. Each student was administered the Mooney Problem Check List (MPCL), College Form (1950) during the first week of enrollment at the community college. he data were analyzed in order to determine if a significant difference existed in the problem areas reported by students according to a Friedman Two-Way Analysis of Variance by Ranks. A significant difference produced by the Friedman ANOVA indicated a need to apply a Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed Ranks Test in order to determine which problem areas differed significantly from one another. A Mann Whitney U Test was employed to statistically compare the problem areas of male students and female students as well as married students and single students. A Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance by ranks for k independent samples was employed to test differences in the responses of four student age groups: 18 and under, 19 and 20, 20 through 29 and 30 years of age and over.

"The problem of this study is to determine, by means of a statistical analysis of the results from the Mooney Problem Check List given to 1011 students at North Texas State College during the year 1949-50, what the problems of college freshmen are and if there is a significant change in the areas in which those problems are found from one semester to another."--1-2.