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Abstract
This quantitative study examined the college choice perceptions of Tennessee high school seniors participating in the Senior Opinions Survey administered by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission in 2002 and 2004. The purpose of the study was to examine changes in student perceptions from before the implementation of the Tennessee HOPE Lottery Scholarship Program in 2002 to the time period after the program made the first scholarship awards in 2004. Chi-square, mixed analysis of variance, dependent and independent t-test statistical analyses were used to answer the research questions in this study.
The results for the demographic cohort comparisons indicated that the demographic variables of ethnicity and highest level of parental education were significantly different from 2002 to 2004. Specifically, a major finding in this study was a significant increase from 2002 to 2004 in the number of African American survey respondents who planned to attend college. The demographic variables of gender, family income and ability were non-significant in the chi-square analysis. The mixed analysis of variance procedure resulted in significant differences independent of cohort between the college choice factor scales. Significant differences for the college choice factor scale cohort comparisons were also found. Pairwise comparisons resulted in small to large effect size differences. Most notably, cost factors were significantly different from people factors in this study. Lastly, cohort comparisons of the college of the college choice factor scales resulted in significant differences in non-academic college choice factors and people factors while no significant differences were found in academic, cost and geographical factors. However, the effect sizes for the significant college choice factors in this study were very small.
Future longitudinal research using the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's Senior Opinions Survey to compare multiple years of survey data will help provide a better picture of the possible impact of the Tennessee HOPE Lottery Scholarship Program on the college choice perceptions of Tennessee high school students.
