The purpose of this study is to make an investigation relating to certain factors and influences that have some bearing upon decisions made by graduating seniors in high schools to attend college or vocational school before entering a vocation or professional career.

Much has been done to promote the use of management techniques designed to develop human resources within the business enterprise. Unfortunately, most of these procedures are applied after the individual has become an employee of the firm. Similar management techniques are needed for the proper recruitment and placement of each new employee. A major source of employee dissatisfaction and turnover lies in the incapacity of some jobs to satisfy the aspirations and job values of certain types of employees. Therefore, one key to employment stability for the college graduate is the relative compatibility between his job values and the capacity of the job to provide fulfillment for those aspirations. Much needs to be done in the areas of predicting the job values of a college senior and matching the individual graduate with that job which is most apt to provide a productive and meaningful career. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between grade point averages, job values, and career decisions as perceived by the Ma3 1973, graduating seniors of the College of Business Administration at North Texas State University, their professors, and their employment recruiters. The students provided background data such as grade point average, SAT scores, and marital status in addition to Likert-type rankings of family experiences and job values. The professors also provided rankings of their job values. Those employers who had interviewed seniors through the Business Employment Services office during the spring semester of 1973 ranked the same job values and selected student characteristics in accordance with the emphasis placed upon them during recruitment. Significant relationships were identified through the calculation of product-moment correlation coefficients. Comparisons were made utilizing t-tests of significance.

The purpose of this study was to identify the occupational aspirations and expectations of students majoring in jazz studies, and to investigate relationships between students' aspirations, expectations and selected variables including significant others, choice of school, instrument type, academic achievement, academic level, socioeconomic status, age, gender, and early jazz experience. All jazz studies majors enrolled at the University of North Texas during the Spring 2001 academic semester responded to a pilot test questionnaire (return rate 85%, N = 211). Frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations described the students' occupational aspirations, occupational expectations, backgrounds and training in jazz prior to entering UNT, and determined the extent to which parents, relatives, teachers, friends, and role models helped steer them into jazz (Pearson r, Spearman Rho and Point Biserial correlation coefficients provided). The low to moderate positive correlation between aspirations and expectations (r = 0.43) indicated that the two variables were different and measured different types of occupations. Fifty percent of students aspired to be jazz performers whereas 29.7% expected to be jazz performers. While 42% aspired to be engaged in a combination of occupational activities, 48% expected a combination of occupational activities. Only 4.7% aspired to teach; however, almost 16% expected to be engaged in teaching. Low positive correlations were found between aspirations and significant others, expectations and significant others, expectations and gender, and expectations and role models. Respondents indicated that role models (jazz musicians, community musicians, and college instructors) had contributed the most to their decision to major in jazz. Recommendations for educators, researchers, and improvements to the questionnaire are provided.