Social Status and Educational Aspirations

The controlled variable, intelligence, was measured in the same manner by using the scores from the Henmon-Nelson Test of Mental Ability. Further, the tables generated the data at each levels of the control variable, Intelligence Quintiles (IQ), and composed its relationship with independent variable, parental occupation status, at high levels of educational and occupational aspirations. Since both controlled and independent variables were placed in one of five equal-sized categories with ranked-orders, the level of measurements for them were ordinal. The dependent variables were classified into high and low categories which indicates their level of measurements were nominal. According to data, the result reveals there was a statically significance between aspirations and parental occupation for both sexes. Thus, the authors suggested that educational and occupational aspiration of youth were influenced by their parental occupation for both males and females (Sewell et al. 1957). .
             With the consideration of measuring the variables which were based on a categorical scales, it was appropriate to use the chi-square test since the study was designed to analyze group differences while the dependent variable was measure at a nominal level. As well, because of the nature of non-parametric test, Chi-square test required no assumption about the shape of the population (Healey and Prus 2013) which could be used in a wide variety of research contexts. In this case, the study did not assume the normality of the population, thus Chi-square test was capable to this specific study. Each individual was proportionately fit into one category meaning all participants were measured independently. In addition, the expected frequencies for each categories of the study were greater than 5 so Chi-square was able to be well-establish.
             The null hypothesis of the study was that there would be no relationship between level of educational and occupational aspirations and parental social status for both sexes when measured intelligence is controlled.