Title: 122 JROTC students from 30 different high schools out-do 766 typical high school students on personal development.

(Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps students score higher on The Personal Development Test)

Date: June 22, 2003 Publication: Education Author: Schmidt, Raymond

Repeated studies at both the high school and college levels demonstrate that JROTC at high school level and ROTC at college level generally display statistically significant higher personal development for the student taking JROTC or ROTC than other corresponding students (Cassel and Airman, 2000). Two studies compared high school JROTC cadets with typical college students, and in both cases the high school JROTC cadets scored significantly higher than typical college students (DeMoulin and Ritter, 2000, and Kolstad & Ritter, 2000). (The Personal Development Test was then called The Democratic Maturity Test, and the Eff and EST scores were reversed in the test.) In 2001 a study was done using The Personal Development Test showing the 64 JROTC cadets had statistically significant higher PDT mean score than that of 1913 Typical High School Students (Schmidt, 2001). Those JROTC students were generally from high schools in the San Diego area; while the 122 JROTC cadets for the present study came from across California, including San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.

The present study sought to make another comparison between JROTC high school cadets from California and Typical High School Students from the United States and Canada on The Personal Development Test.

Groups Involved

The Typical 766 High School Students ranged in age from 15 to 19 years with a mean age of 16.56, and with a standard deviation of 0.75 years. It included 432 females and 334 males. A t-statistic was computed on the Mean PDT scores showing the females had statistically significant greater personal development on every one of the PDT scores than the males. The standard deviations for the PDT scores were generally twice as large as for the JROTC cadets.

The 122 JROTC cadets came from 30 different high schools in California and ranged in age from 15 to 18 years with a mean age of 16.56 and with a standard deviation of 0.75 years. There were 59 females and 63 males. A t-statistic was computed between all mean PDT scores for male and female cadets, and the single score SYM (Sympathy) was the only score to show a statistically significant difference between the male and female students favoring females. All of the standard deviations for the PDT scores were much smaller for the JROTC cadets than for Typical Students, indicating their similarity is more pointed than for the Typical High School Students. The average Grade Point Average (GPS) for both groups was above 3.00--they were better than average students.

Statistical Comparisons of PDT Scores

A statistical comparison was made between the Mean PDT scores of the 122 JROTC cadets with 766 Typical High School Individuals using a t-statistic as shown in Table 1. Every one of the 8 part scores, except TEA (Team Member) and EST (Self-esteem) on the PDT test showed a statistically significant difference at the 005 level or better favoring the JROTC cadets. This in spite of the fact that the Typical High School students were statistically significant older, and Personal Development tends to increase with age. The fact that the PDT standard deviation scores for the JROTC cadets tend to be much smaller, suggests the pointed effect of the personal development on all such cadets. The CON (Confluence Scores) is a newly developed measure for validation of data--all such scores of 13 or higher were eliminated from this data.

Discussion

The evidence of superior personal development for JROTC and ROTC cadets in comparison to corresponding Typical Students suggests that carefully organized "team membership" activity tends to foster personal development in adolescent youth in our high schools and even young adults in our colleges. Based on this kind of information, the San Diego City Schools are planning to increase the 11 high schools presently offering JROTC to 14 such schools. In addition to Personal Development there is a patriotic element that JROTC provides that should not be overlooked.

Table 1 

Comparing the Mean Scores on the PDT for JROTC Cadets 

and Typical High School Students with t-statistics 

(N=122 JROTC Cadets, & 766 Typical High School Students) 

   Typical 

High 

PDT JROTC  School 

Means  Cadets Students   Difference 

1. Chronological AGE: 

M   16.56   17.631.07 

SD   0.753.75 

2. Self-efficacy-EFF: 

M   76.69   65.67  -11.02 

SD   8.55   14.88 

3. Coping Skills-COP: 

M   83.12   71.40  -11.72 

SD   9.29   16.78 

4. Passive Assertiveness-ASS: 

M   69.93   59.68  -10.25 

SD  10.30   11.43 

5. Locus of Control 

(Decision making)-LOC: 

M   76.43   69.67   -6.76 

SD   8.31   15.91 

6. Personal Maturity Total-PERMAT: 

M  306.10  266.63  -39.47 

SD  25.05   47.50 

7. Team Member-TEA: 

M   60.62   61.631.01 

SD  11.13   14.56 

8. Sympathy-SYM: 

M   69.62   64.58   -5.04 

SD  11.52   15.86 

9. Self-esteem-EST: 

M 

SD 

10. Caring-CAR: 

M   67.38   63.07   -4.31 

SD  13.65   15.95 

11. Social Integration Total-SOCINT: 

M  269.16  259.28   -9.88 

SD  32.45   45.78 

12. PDT Total Score-PDTTOT: 

M  575.31  525.54  -49.77 

SD  49.55   87.98 

13. Confluence Score-CON: 

M7.428.310.89 

SD   2.632.64 

14. Grade Point Average-GPA: 

M3.113.02   -0.09 

SD   0.590.50 

PDT  t- 

Means Statistic   Probability 

1. Chronological AGE: 

M   3.1590.002 

SD 

2. Self-efficacy-EFF: 

M   7.9670.000 

SD 

3. Coping Skills-COP: 

M   7.5270.000 

SD 

4. Passive Assertiveness-ASS: 

M   9.3210.000 

SD 

5. Locus of Control 

(Decision making)-LOC: 

M   4.5960.000 

SD 

6. Personal Maturity Total-PERMAT: 

M   8.9790.000 

SD 

7. Team Member-TEA: 

M   0.730 n.s. 

SD 

8. Sympathy-SYM: 

M   3.3670.001 

SD 

9. Self-esteem-EST: 

M 

SD 

10. Caring-CAR: 

M   2.8210.005 

SD 

11. Social Integration Total-SOCINT: 

M   2.2930.022 

SD 

12. PDT Total Score-PDTTOT: 

M   6.0950.000 

SD 

13. Confluence Score-CON: 

M   3.4730.001 

SD 

14. Grade Point Average-GPA: 

M   1.729 n.s. 

SD 

References

Cassel, R.N., and Chow, P. (2002). The Personal Development Test (PDT) Chula Vista, California: The Cassel Research Institute.

Cassel, R.N., and Airman, W.D. (2000). Comparing the democratic maturity and self-fulfillment between college AF ROTC cadets and teacher-preparation students. Education, 120 (3), 433-437.

DeMoulin, D.F., and Ritter, D.L. LTCOL, AF (Ret.). (2000). Comparison of Democratic Maturity and Self-fulfillment between high school AF JROTC cadets and upper division college students. Education, 120 (3), 410-415.

Kolstad, R., and Ritter, D.L., LTCOL, USAF (Ret.) (2000) Use of Air Force JROTC high school cadets as role models for developing democratic maturity in pre-education teachers. Education, 120(3), 416-421.

Schmidt, R. (2001). JROTC Cadets in Leadership Training display significantly higher Personal Development than Typical Students. Education, 122(2), 302-306.

MAJOR RAYMOND SCHMIDT, USMC (RET.)

Military Order of World Wars

1345 Friends Way, Fallbrook, California 92028

COPYRIGHT 2003 Project Innovation

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