Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 08832320903252447
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Hispanic College Students’ Perceptions of
Members of Business Occupations: An Exploratory
Study
Suzanne N. Cory , Ellen Wall Mullen & Thomas Edward Reeves
To cite this article: Suzanne N. Cory , Ellen Wall Mullen & Thomas Edward Reeves (2009)
Hispanic College Students’ Perceptions of Members of Business Occupations: An Exploratory
Study, Journal of Education for Business, 85:3, 125-131, DOI: 10.1080/08832320903252447
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320903252447
Published online: 08 Jul 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 25
View related articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:30
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 85: 125–131, 2010
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright
ISSN: 0883-2323
DOI: 10.1080/08832320903252447
Hispanic College Students’ Perceptions of Members
of Business Occupations: An Exploratory Study
Suzanne N. Cory, Ellen Wall Mullen, and Thomas Edward Reeves
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas, USA
The authors explored freshmen Hispanic and non-Hispanic White student perceptions of
the members of three different business occupations: bankers, accountants, and marketing
managers. Using t tests, some differences were found between the two ethnic groups regarding
perceived individual characteristics of members of the occupations, but the application of a
supervised learning technique to identify the ethnicity of respondents, based on these results,
was not successful. Chi-square tests indicated that student responses were often related to
whether they knew someone practicing the occupation. The authors offer suggestions for
helping students obtain a more accurate understanding of bankers, accountants, and marketing
managers.
Keywords: Occupational perceptions, Hispanic college students, Supervised learning
Hispanics have become the fastest growing ethnic group in the
United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are
currently 44.3 million Hispanics living in the United States,
representing 15% of the population. This number is projected
to skyrocket to 102.6 million, or 24% of the population, by
2050. One of the most notable things about the Hispanic population is its youth. The median age of Hispanics in 2005 was
27.2 years, compared with 36.2 years for the population as a
whole. Although about half the nation’s Hispanics live in two
states—Texas and California—their population is spreading
and large numbers are settling in communities in the United
States where few Hispanics have settled before, including
Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Alabama. Their influence is now felt “from the Mexican border to Minnesota [and]
from California to the Carolinas” (Schmidt, 2007, p. 169).
In addition, the number of Hispanics seeking higher education in the United States is greater than ever before. The
number of Hispanics enrolled in U.S. colleges has increased
more than threefold since 1980 (Schmidt, 2007), and more
than 240 U.S. colleges are now designated as Hispanicserving institutions, indicating that at least 25% of their enrollment is Hispanic. As more business schools target Hispanic students for recruitment and the numbers of this ethnic
group in colleges and universities expand, educators with
Correspondence should be addressed to Suzanne N. Cory, Department of Accounting, Bill Greehey School of Business, St. Mary’s University, One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, TX 78228, USA. E-mail:
scory@stmarytx.edu
an improved understanding of these students will be better
prepared to meet their needs.
Given possible cultural differences between Hispanics and
non-Hispanic Whites, Leppel (2001) was concerned about
whether Hispanics are likely to consider a major in business.
If not, then business schools could be at a serious disadvantage as they scramble to attract a portion of the burgeoning number of Hispanic college students to major in one of
their business disciplines. However, Leppel concluded that
Hispanics were more likely to major in business than nonHispanic Whites, which, based on their projected population
increase, is predicted to expand their college enrollment and
fuel future growth for many business schools. However, Leppel did not investigate which discipline within business may
be more attractive to Hispanic students.
Methods used for students to select college majors have
been studied previously (Cohen & Hanno, 1993; Kim,
Markham, & Cangelosi, 2002; Lackland & DeLisi, 2001;
Leppel, Williams, & Waldauer, 2001; Porter & Umbach,
2006). Robertson (2000) determined that students use many
factors when selecting their courses, including work experience, interest and success in previous similar courses.
Boudarbat (2008) determined that anticipated earnings in
their field of choice had a significant influence on Canadian community college students’ choice of major and that
students who had been employed prior to beginning their
academic careers were more responsive to earnings variations than were students who had no prior work experience Others have more narrowly focused attention on
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
126
S. N. CORY ET AL.
student selection of discipline within the business school
(Malgwi, Howe, & Burnaby, 2005; Noel, Michaels, & Levas,
2003; Pritchard, Potter, & Saccucci, 2004; Strasser, Ozgur,
& Schroeder, 2002) but no agreement about the determining
factor(s) used to make this choice has been achieved.
Investigation of role models has determined that they
can often directly influence individuals’ career aspirations
(Hackett, Esposito, & O’Halloran, 1989; Nauta, Epperson,
& Khan, 1998). Role models and the influence of mothers
and other family members have been found to significantly
influence the educational and career aspirations of Hispanic
women, (Cardoza, 1991) and Flores and Obasi (2005) reported that mentors and role models were instrumental in affecting the career decisions of Hispanic high school students.
Ceja (2004) completed qualitative interviews with Chicana
high school seniors and found a noteworthy role of parents
in the development of their career aspirations.
The influences of others on college students’ choice of
major has been studied, but only in a very limited manner
with Hispanic students. The focus of much research using
Hispanic students as subjects often deals more with them
simply attaining a college degree of any sort. One stream of
research addresses issues that tend to affect Hispanic students
more than others, such as the added challenges many of them
face because of getting minimal support from friends and
family in their pursuit of a college degree (Pluviose, 2007),
their tendency to be at risk for finishing high school (Solberg, Carlstrom, Howard, & Jones, 2007), or their notable
reliance on 2-year colleges for starting their postsecondary
education (Gonzalez & Hilmer, 2006). Additionally, as noted
by Rivera, Blumberg, Chen, Ponterotto, and Flores (2007),
research on Hispanics has primarily focused on Mexican
American women. Johnson-Bailey (2004) studied retention
and participation issues affecting Black female graduate students enrolled in programs within a college of education.
They found that one of four factors influencing retention was
networking by Black students, but no evidence was provided
indicating this may also have influenced choice of major.
As indicated previously, although the focus of much research has dealt with the unique challenges Hispanic students
face in their academic careers, little has been done to determine why Hispanic students chose a college major or if their
decisions are driven by different information than that of nonHispanic White students. In general, major selection seems
to be driven by many factors, including role model influence,
previous work experience, family culture, and mentors, as
well as job availability, earnings potential, interest, and aptitude in the subject matter. Students have many methods for
gathering information about potential majors, one of which
may be their perceptions about individuals currently practicing the occupation.
It is possible that college students have preconceptions
about members of occupations as they begin their academic
career. These preconceptions, or stereotypes, may actually
impact their decision about their choice of major. According
to Ashmore and Del Boca (1981), a stereotype is a set of
beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people. Individuals simplify and conserve mental resources when they
use stereotyping. According to Macrae, Milne, and Bodenhausen (1994), stereotypes are used for filtering, organizing,
and remembering information. Some feel that occupations
tend to attract individuals with certain characteristics. For
example, many individuals may have preconceptions about
the attributes of accountants, computer programmers, engineers, social workers, or insurance agents. However, these
preconceptions may be misconceptions. Given that Hispanics now represent 11% of the college-aged population in
the United States, getting an idea about their stereotypical
views of selected business occupations, as compared with
non-Hispanic White students, may be useful as colleges try
to attract more Hispanics to major in business disciplines.
Little work has been done that targets Hispanics in this
manner and not many studies specifically use Hispanic students as participants. Exceptions include Leppel (2001), who
explored the impact of Hispanic ethnicity on the business major, and Landry, Moyes, and Cortes (2004), who examined
ethical perceptions of Hispanic students by major and by gender. Erlach (2000) addressed the problem of few Hispanics in
the United States professoriate to serve as effective role models for aspiring Hispanic students. Most previous research has
dealt with Hispanic consumer choice and marketing issues
(Hernandez, Cohen, & Garcia, 2000; Kara & Kara, 1996),
their job satisfaction (Moyes, Owusu-Ansah, & Ganguli,
2006), and especially Hispanic entrepreneurs (Shim & Eastlick, 1998; Shinnar & Young, 2008; Smith-Hunter, 2006).
The present study was designed to investigate whether
differences exist in Hispanic and non-Hispanic White undergraduate students’ perceptions of personality traits of the
members of three different business occupations. The professions studied were bankers, accountants, and marketing
managers.
METHOD
A semantic differential instrument, similar to the instrument
used by Cory, Beer, Reeves, and Nouyrigat (2006), Beer and
Cory (1996), Davidson and Etherington (1995), and Cory
(1992) was designed to gather information about students’
perceptions of the personality traits of members of three occupations: bankers, accountants, and marketing managers.
These occupations were selected based on statistics published by the Department of Labor indicating the majority
of business students find jobs in finance, banking, and as
stockbrokers as well as in service areas, including accounting and marketing. Additionally, these occupations were used
by Cory and we felt the students in the present study should
be familiar with them.
Students were presented with 15 pairs of personality traits
which could be descriptive of a member of each of the three
HISPANIC COLLEGE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS
C1
C1 C11
C2 C21
Very Fairly Slightly Neither Slightly Fairly Very
Aggressive _____ _____ ______ ______ ______ ______ ____Timid
FIGURE 1
C2
C12
C22
Rating scale.
FIGURE 2
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
127
occupations. Each pair of terms was separated by a 7-line
measuring stick and students chose which of each pair of
words they felt was more descriptive of a member of the
occupation indicated. Students were told to think of a member of the respective profession and then to place a mark
between each pair of descriptive terms, based on the strength
of the occupation’s association with the term. For example,
Figure 1 shows how the terms “Aggressive” and “Timid”
were presented to the students.
If the term on the left was selected, the response was coded
as 3, 2, or 1, based on the strength indicated (i.e., very, fairly,
or slightly, respectively) and –3, –2, or –1 if the term on
the right was selected, again based on the strength indicated
(i.e., very, fairly, or slightly, respectively). If the response
was “neither,” the response was coded as zero. The terms
and coding methods were the same as those used by Cory
(1992).
First, t scores were computed to determine whether differences occurred between the Hispanic and the non-Hispanic
White students’ perceptions of these personality traits. The
t statistic is a means test used to identify whether a given
trait is significant on a univariate basis but does not provide information on these personality traits taken as a whole.
Therefore, to further investigate our findings, a supervised
learning technique (Roiger & Geatz, 2003) was used to analyze the data. Supervised learning is a process of forming a
general concept definition by observing specific examples of
the concept to be learned. Individuals use models that help
them identify objects of similar structure, which is called
induction-based supervised learning.
Supervised Learning
Supervised learning has two purposes. First, supervised
learning is used to build classification models from sets of
data that have examples and nonexamples of the concepts individuals want to learn from. Each example or nonexample
is called an instance of the data. Second, once a classification
model is built, the model is used to define a newly presented
instance into a category. Further, supervised learning models
are designed to classify, estimate, or predict future outcomes.
The data are divided into two sets. One set is called the training set and these data are used to train the model. The second
set is called the test set and these data are used to see how
well the model classifies the data. The goal is to build classification models that show consistency and have high predictive accuracy. Classification correctness is best calculated
by presenting previously unseen instances as a test data set.
The predictions of the test data can be summarized in a table
known as a confusion matrix, which is shown in Figure 2.
Two-class confusion matrix.
Values along the main diagonal represent correct classifications. For the confusion matrix, the value C11 represents
the total number of class C1 instances correctly classified by
the model. A similar statement can be made for the value
C22 . Values in row Ci represent those instances that belong to
Ci . For example, for i = 1, the instances associated with cells
C11 and C12 are all actually members of C1 . To find the total
number of C1 instances incorrectly classified as members of
Class 2, refer to C12 . Values found in column Ci indicate
those instances that have been classified as members of Ci .
With i = 1, the instances associated with C21 have been classified as members of class C1 . To find the total number of
instances incorrectly classified as members of class C1 , refer
to cell C21 .
The supervised data-mining process used in this study
was performed using the iDA software package, a Microsoft
Excel add-on. The iDA package uses examples from the data
to learn and categorize or cluster cases without making any
assumptions about the data. When learning is unsupervised
(no restrictions on the number of clusters by the user), several optimizing heuristic evaluation functions are used to
cluster input data into naturally occurring groups. This is
a process similar to that used in human learning. Research
has shown that much of human learning involves the storage
and retrieval of data records or instances of data of learned
concepts. Humans use these examples to categorize newly
encountered instances of unknown origin. The data-mining
tool used in the present study works in a similar fashion by
using examples stored in categories (Roiger & Geatz, 2003).
After using supervised learning, the Chi-square statistic
was then computed to determine whether Hispanic and nonHispanic White students’ answers varied based on whether
they actually knew someone practicing the occupation. The
goal in this case was to determine whether student responses
may be influenced based on their acquaintance with someone
in the occupation.
Sample
Students from three different U.S. universities participated
in the present study. One university was located in the West,
one in the Southwest, and one in the East. We selected
these universities based on their diverse student body and
faculty. A total of 510 responses were received, of which
404 were completed by Hispanic or non-Hispanic White
students. However, because the focus of the present study
was individuals who had just begun their college studies and
also had limited exposure to working life, attention was focused on Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students who
128
S. N. CORY ET AL.
TABLE 1
Gender and Ethnicity of Respondents Students No Older Than 19 Years of Age
Group
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
Men
Women
Total
Non-Hispanic White
Hispanic
Total
n
%
n
%
n
%
40
62
102
13.38
20.74
34.11
77
120
197
25.75
40.13
65.89
117
182
299
39.13
60.87
—
were no older than 19 years of age. This reduced the sample
size to 299 respondents. As shown in Table 1, there were
197 usable responses from Hispanic students and 102 from
non-Hispanic White students. Just over 60% of the respondents were female. These students were on the threshold of
their academic careers and, as a general rule, should have
some familiarity with the three business professions being
studied.
RESULTS
As shown in Table 2, the set of terms was provided to all
respondents for each of the professions. T tests were used to
identify differences in term rankings between the Hispanic
students and the non-Hispanic White students for each of the
three business professions. A negative t score indicated that
the mean average for Hispanics was higher than that for nonHispanic Whites, and a positive t score indicated the opposite.
Hence, the Hispanic students felt bankers were more unambitious, impulsive, impatient, and awkward, and that accountants were more imaginative, confused, impulsive, rebellious,
and optimistic than did their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Finally, Hispanics felt that marketing managers were
more uncertain, unambitious, indifferent, confused, conservative, impulsive, and awkward than did the non-Hispanic
Whites in our sample. In general, then, with some exceptions, Hispanics had more negative stereotypical images of
members of these occupations than did their non-Hispanic
White counterparts.
Next, using the results of the t tests, supervised learning
was used to determine whether the responses for each profession could be identified as Hispanic or non-Hispanic White.
The results are shown in Table 3. First, a subset of data (the
training set) was used to train the model. Then, the model
was tested to see how well it predicted the responses of 25
Hispanic and 25 non-Hispanic White students. As shown in
Table 3, non-Hispanic White students were properly classified most often based on their perceptions of bankers (80%),
followed by marketing managers (60%). Hispanic students
were properly classified most often based on their perceptions of marketing managers (64%). Beyond these results,
the model did not correctly detect differences between the
Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students in the present
study. This suggests that there were few significant differences in the overall view of someone in these occupations
between the Hispanic and the non-Hispanic White students
in the sample.
TABLE 2
Results of t Tests for Differences Between Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White Students In Three Business Occupations
Term
Bankers
Accountants
Marketing Managers
Aggressive–Timid
Confident–Uncertain
Ambitious–Unambitious
Forceful–Shy
Imaginative–Dull
Enthusiastic–Indifferent
Intelligent–Confused
Outspoken–Conservative
Impulsive–Methodical
Rebellious–Conforming
Impatient–Patient
Informal–Formal
Independent–Submissive
Enterprising–Awkward
Optimistic–Pessimistic
–0.79
1.13
1.96∗
0.64
–0.84
–0.92
1.05
–0.74
−2.60∗∗
–1.49
–1.93†
–1.66
–0.29
2.64∗∗
–0.86
–1.33
0.20
0.43
0.06
–2.88∗
–0.82
2.16∗
–1.32
–4.62∗∗
–2.16∗
–1.09
–0.68
–0.73
–0.93
–1.82†
1.07
1.70†
1.66†
1.32
–0.52
2.01∗
2.62∗
1.65†
–1.75†
0.25
0.88
1.42
–0.18
2.94∗∗
1.36
Note. Statistically different term is underlined.
= .10.∗ p = .05.∗∗ p = .01.
†p
HISPANIC COLLEGE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS
129
TABLE 3
Confusion Matrices for Each of the Three Occupations
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
Occupation
Banker
Actually Non-Hispanic White
Actually Hispanic
Total
Accountant
Actually Non-Hispanic White
Actually Hispanic
Total
Marketing manager
Actually Non-Hispanic White
Actually Hispanic
Total
Classified as
Non-Hispanic White
Classified as Hispanic
Total
% Correct
20
17
37
5
8
13
25
25
50
80%
32%
56%
12
11
23
13
14
27
25
25
50
48%
56%
52%
15
9
24
10
16
26
25
25
50
60%
64%
62%
Finally, the possibility that actually knowing someone in
the occupations may have influenced the students’ attribute
selection was tested. Student responses were grouped into
three categories: (a) attribute on the left was chosen, (b)
attribute on the right was chosen, and (c) neither attribute
was chosen. The chi-square test for differences was then
used to determine whether each group of student responses
might have been influenced because they knew someone in
the occupation. Results for Hispanic students are shown in
Table 4 and for non-Hispanic White students in Table 5.
As shown in Table 4, Hispanic student responses were
most often different for bankers, based on whether they
knew someone in that occupation. Responses were statistically different, at least at the 10% level, for 13 of the 45
total responses (8 of the 15 terms for bankers and 4 of the
15 terms for accountants, but only 1 of the 15 terms for
marketing managers). Results presented in Table 5 indicate
that non-Hispanic White student responses were most often
statistically different, at least at the 10% level, for 14 of the
45 total responses (5 of the 15 terms for accountants and
marketing managers and in 4 of the terms for bankers).
If students actually knew someone practicing in the occupation, their responses were significantly different from students who did not know someone practicing the occupation
for about one third of the comparisons (13/45 for Hispanics
and 14/45 for the non-Hispanic Whites). These results lend
support to the supposition that stereotypes can be affected by
a variety of sources, including whether someone has actually
been exposed to a member of the stereotypical group under
study. Hence, one determining factor students may use to address the stereotype issue is personal knowledge, rather than
society’s stereotypical imprint.
TABLE 4
Hispanic Students’ Chi-Square Results for Differences Regarding Knowing or Not Knowing Someone in the Occupation
Term
Aggressive–Timid
Confident–Uncertain
Ambitious–Unambitious
Forceful–Shy
Imaginative–Dull
Enthusiastic–Indifferent
Intelligent–Confused
Outspoken–Conservative
Impulsive–Methodical
Rebellious–Conforming
Impatient–Patient
Informal–Formal
Independent–Submissive
Enterprising–Awkward
Optimistic–Pessimistic
†p
= .10.∗ p = .05.∗∗ p = .01.
Bankers
Accountants
Marketing Managers
3.7099∗
3.5972∗
2.0688
10.8115∗∗
4.3722∗
9.1316∗∗
1.2644
1.9155
0.6739
5.2394∗
0.9026
0.0183
1.2594
4.6857∗
2.7372†
0.8346
7.6170∗
4.5953∗
0.0358
1.7625
0.6426
1.0605
1.8239
1.9806
0.1705
0.0177
0.3612
5.3219∗
2.6608†
1.1596
0.0239
0.0041
0.0000
0.0240
3.7414∗
1.5795
0.2148
0.9796
0.0009
0.1312
0.5149
0.1385
0.7723
0.0732
0.7195
130
S. N. CORY ET AL.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
TABLE 5
Non-Hispanic White Students’ Chi-Square Results for Differences Regarding Knowing or Not Knowing Someone in the
Occupation
Term
Bankers
Accountants
Marketing Managers
Aggressive–Timid
Confident–Uncertain
Ambitious–Unambitious
Forceful–Shy
Imaginative–Dull
Enthusiastic–Indifferent
Intelligent–Confused
Outspoken–Conservative
Impulsive–Methodical
Rebellious–Conforming
Impatient–Patient
Informal–Formal
Independent–Submissive
Enterprising–Awkward
Optimistic–Pessimistic
6.3627∗
0.7392
4.0251∗
0.0675
4.4197∗
5.4719∗
0.0663
0.7981
1.2961
0.0022
0.0826
0.0193
0.1014
0.3443
2.2049
1.4189
0.6469
5.9979∗
6.7340∗∗
2.6096
12.7459∗∗
4.3367∗
1.4464
3.2133†
0.0221
0.8505
0.0000
1.5117
1.2439
2.1351
0.9576
2.2749
2.7839†
0.2437
4.4172∗
1.1734
3.1457†
3.0061†
2.2098
0.0135
5.4608∗
0.0425
0.0052
0.8513
2.6286
†p
= .10.∗ p = .05.∗∗ p = .01.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
In the present study, we examined the question of whether
differences exist in Hispanic and non-Hispanic White undergraduate students’ perceptions of personality traits of the
members of three different business occupations: accountants, bankers, and marketing managers. A sample of students
from three different universities was surveyed about their perceptions of members of these occupations. T tests were used
to identify statistically significant differences in those perceptions. Results suggest that the occupational perceptions
between the two groups of students were not significantly different. In other words, although Hispanic and non-Hispanic
White students differed in some of their stereotypical beliefs about members of these business occupations, they also
shared many. In addition, chi-square test results revealed that
responses from both groups of students were somewhat affected based on whether they knew someone practicing the
occupation. These results suggest that stereotypes are affected more by whether the student knows someone in that
occupation than by ethnicity.
For educators, simply assuming students’ perceptions of
business occupations differ based on ethnicity could be a
mistake. Although occupational stereotypes may vary somewhat by culture, other factors may exert a more powerful
influence on student choice of major and occupation. Specifically, knowing someone practicing the occupation may be
helpful for students as they choose a business discipline.
Consequently, the more experience all students can have
with individuals in a profession, the less they need to rely
on stereotypes as a cognitive heuristic in choosing a major.
Thus, we recommended that business schools encourage
active student involvement with industry professionals to
encourage pursuit of relevant majors. Programs that bring
professionals to campus or enable students to interact with
professionals in industry off campus could be invaluable in
assisting students select a major. For example, an Executive in Residence program or Professor for a Day program
inviting industry professionals to campus to speak to and
work with students could provide a valuable experience. In
addition, internships can confirm students’ choice of major
by enabling them to interact with professionals in the workplace. This activity not only provides valuable real-world
experience, but also enables them to familiarize themselves
with individuals in the occupation and to meet potential role
models and mentors. Bringing industry to the classroom or
the classroom to industry may provide students with the most
realistic, relevant information on which to base their decision
of a major and ultimately their choice of a career.
REFERENCES
Ashmore, R. D., & Del Boca, F. K. (1981). Conceptual approaches to stereotypes and stereotyping. In D. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Cognitive processes in
stereotyping an intergroup behavior (pp. 1–35). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Beer, F. M., & Cory, S. N. (1996). Accounting students’ perceptions of certified public accountants: Gender differences. Journal of Business Issues,
1(1), 91–96.
Boudarbat, B. (2008). Field of study choice by community college students
in Canada. Economics of Education Review, 27(1), 79–93.
Cardoza, D. (1991). College attendance and persistence among Hispanic
women: An examination of some contributing factors. Sex Roles, 24,
133–137.
Ceja, M. (2004). Chicana college aspirations and the role of parents: Developing educational resiliency. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 3,
338–362.
Cohen, J., & Hanno, D. (1993). An analysis of underlying constructs affecting the choice of accounting as a major. Issues in Accounting Education,
8, 219–238.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
HISPANIC COLLEGE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS
Cory, S. N. (1992). Quality and quantity of accounting students and the
stereotypical accountant: Is there a relationship? The Journal of Accounting Education, 10(1), 1–24.
Cory, S. N., Beer, F. M., Reeves, T. E., & Nouyrigat, G. (2006). Do
differences in occupational stereotypes exist between students in the
U.S. and France? International Journal of Business Research, 6, 201–
208.
Davidson, R. A., & Etherington, L. D. (1995). Personalities of accounting students and public accountants: Implications for accounting educators and the profession. Journal of Accounting Education, 13, 425–
444.
Erlach, D. (2000). Hispanics and higher education: Multicultural myopia.
Journal of Education for Business, 75, 283–285.
Flores, Y. L., & Obasi, E. M. (2005). Mentors’ influence on Mexican American students’ career and educational development. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 33, 146–164.
Gonzalez, A., & Hilmer, M. J. (2006). The role of 2-year colleges in the
improving situation of Hispanic postsecondary education. Economics of
Education Review, 25, 249–257.
Hackett, G., Esposito, D., & O’Halloran, M. S. (1989). A self-efficacy
approach to the career development of women. Journal of Vocational
Behavior, 35, 164–180.
Hernandez, S. A., Cohen, J. F., & Garcia, H. L. (2000). Hispanic acculturation: Conceptual and modeling issues. The Journal of Applied Business
Research, 16(4), 73–83.
Johnson-Bailey, J. (2004). Hitting and climbing the proverbial wall: Participation and retention issues for Black graduate women. Race, Ethnicity
and Education, 7, 331–349.
Kara, A., & Kara, N. R. (1996). Ethnicity and consumer choice: A study
of Hispanic decision processes across different acculturation levels. The
Journal of Applied Business Research, 12(2), 22–34.
Kim, D., Markham, F. S., & Cangelosi, J. D. (2002). Why students pursue
the business degree: A comparison of business majors across universities.
Journal of Education for Business, 78, 28–32.
Lackland, A., & DeLisi, R. (2001). Students’ choices of college majors
that are gender traditional and nontraditional. Journal of College Student
Development, 42(1), 39–48.
Landry, R., Moyes, G. D., & Cortes, A. C. (2004). Ethical perceptions
among Hispanic students: Differences by major and gender. Journal of
Education for Business, 80, 102–108.
Leppel, K. (2001). Race, Hispanic ethnicity, and the future of the college
business major in the United States. Journal of Education for Business,
76, 209–215.
Leppel, K., Williams, M., & Waldauer, C. (2001). The impact of parental
occupation and socioeconomic status on choice of college major. Journal
of Family and Economic Issues, 22, 373–394.
Macrae, C. N., Milne, A.B., & Bodenhausen, G.V. (1994). Stereotypes as
energy saving devices: A peek inside the cognitive toolbox. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 66(1), 37–47.
131
Malgwi, C. A., Howe, M. A., & Burnaby, P. A. (2005). Influences on
students’ choice of college major. Journal of Education for Business, 80,
275–282.
Moyes, G. D., Owusu-Ansah, S., & Ganguli, G. (2006). Factors influencing the level of job satisfaction of Hispanic accounting professionals: A
perceptual study. Journal of Business & Economic Studies, 12(1), 12–26.
Nauta, M. M., Epperson, D. L., & Kahn, J. H. (1998). A multiple-groups
analysis of predictors of higher level career aspirations among women
in mathematics, science, and engineering majors. Journal of Counseling
Psychology, 45, 483–496.
Noel, M., Michaels, C., & Levas, M. (2003). The relationship of personality
traits and self-monitoring behavior to choice of business major. Journal
of Education for Business, 78, 153–157.
Pluviose, D. (2007, December 27). Black, brown and college bound. Diverse
Issues in Higher Education, 24(23), 7. Retrieved November 4, 2009, from
http://diverseeducation.com/article/10441/1.php
Porter, S. R., & Umbach, P. D. (2006). College major choice: An analysis
of person-environment fit. Research in Higher Education, 47, 429–449.
Pritchard, R., Potter, G., & Saccucci, M. (2004). The selection of a business
major: Elements influencing student choice and implications for outcomes
assessment. Journal of Education for Business, 79, 152–157.
Rivera, L. M., Blumberg, F., Chen, E. C., Ponterotto, J. G., & Flores, L. Y.
(2007). The effects of perceived barriers, role models and acculturation
on the career self-efficacy and career consideration of Hispanic women.
The Career Development Quarterly, 56, 47–61.
Robertson, I. F. (2000). Influence on choice of course made by university
Year 1 bioscience students: A case study. International Journal of Science
Education, 22, 1201–1218.
Roiger, R. J., & Geatz, M. W. (2003). Data mining: A tutorial-based primer.
New York: Addison Wesley.
Schmidt, P. (2007). Academe’s Hispanic future. In P. McCaffrey (Ed.),
Hispanic Americans (pp. 169–179). New York: H.W. Wilson Company.
Shim, S., & Eastlick, M. A. (1998). Characteristics of Hispanic female
business owners: An exploratory study. Journal of Small Business Management, 36(3), 18–34.
Shinnar, R. S., & Young, C. A. (2008). Hispanic immigrant entrepreneurs
in the Las Vegas metropolitan area: Motivations for entry into and outcomes of self-employment. Journal of Small Business Management, 46,
242–262.
Smith-Hunter, A. (2006). An initial look at the characteristics of Hispanic
women business owners and their businesses. The Business Renaissance
Quarterly: Enhancing the Quality of Life at Work, 1, 101–140.
Solberg, V. S. H., Carlstrom, A. H., Howard, K. A. S., & Jones, J. E.
(2007). Classifying at-risk high school youth: The influence of exposure
to community violence and protective factors on academic and health
outcomes. The Career Development Quarterly, 55, 313–327.
Strasser, S., Ozgur, C., & Schroeder, D. (2002). Selecting a business college
major: An analysis of criteria and choice using the analytical hierarchy
process. Mid-American Journal of Business, 17(2), 47–56.
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Hispanic College Students’ Perceptions of
Members of Business Occupations: An Exploratory
Study
Suzanne N. Cory , Ellen Wall Mullen & Thomas Edward Reeves
To cite this article: Suzanne N. Cory , Ellen Wall Mullen & Thomas Edward Reeves (2009)
Hispanic College Students’ Perceptions of Members of Business Occupations: An Exploratory
Study, Journal of Education for Business, 85:3, 125-131, DOI: 10.1080/08832320903252447
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320903252447
Published online: 08 Jul 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 25
View related articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 11 January 2016, At: 22:30
JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 85: 125–131, 2010
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright
ISSN: 0883-2323
DOI: 10.1080/08832320903252447
Hispanic College Students’ Perceptions of Members
of Business Occupations: An Exploratory Study
Suzanne N. Cory, Ellen Wall Mullen, and Thomas Edward Reeves
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas, USA
The authors explored freshmen Hispanic and non-Hispanic White student perceptions of
the members of three different business occupations: bankers, accountants, and marketing
managers. Using t tests, some differences were found between the two ethnic groups regarding
perceived individual characteristics of members of the occupations, but the application of a
supervised learning technique to identify the ethnicity of respondents, based on these results,
was not successful. Chi-square tests indicated that student responses were often related to
whether they knew someone practicing the occupation. The authors offer suggestions for
helping students obtain a more accurate understanding of bankers, accountants, and marketing
managers.
Keywords: Occupational perceptions, Hispanic college students, Supervised learning
Hispanics have become the fastest growing ethnic group in the
United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are
currently 44.3 million Hispanics living in the United States,
representing 15% of the population. This number is projected
to skyrocket to 102.6 million, or 24% of the population, by
2050. One of the most notable things about the Hispanic population is its youth. The median age of Hispanics in 2005 was
27.2 years, compared with 36.2 years for the population as a
whole. Although about half the nation’s Hispanics live in two
states—Texas and California—their population is spreading
and large numbers are settling in communities in the United
States where few Hispanics have settled before, including
Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Alabama. Their influence is now felt “from the Mexican border to Minnesota [and]
from California to the Carolinas” (Schmidt, 2007, p. 169).
In addition, the number of Hispanics seeking higher education in the United States is greater than ever before. The
number of Hispanics enrolled in U.S. colleges has increased
more than threefold since 1980 (Schmidt, 2007), and more
than 240 U.S. colleges are now designated as Hispanicserving institutions, indicating that at least 25% of their enrollment is Hispanic. As more business schools target Hispanic students for recruitment and the numbers of this ethnic
group in colleges and universities expand, educators with
Correspondence should be addressed to Suzanne N. Cory, Department of Accounting, Bill Greehey School of Business, St. Mary’s University, One Camino Santa Maria, San Antonio, TX 78228, USA. E-mail:
scory@stmarytx.edu
an improved understanding of these students will be better
prepared to meet their needs.
Given possible cultural differences between Hispanics and
non-Hispanic Whites, Leppel (2001) was concerned about
whether Hispanics are likely to consider a major in business.
If not, then business schools could be at a serious disadvantage as they scramble to attract a portion of the burgeoning number of Hispanic college students to major in one of
their business disciplines. However, Leppel concluded that
Hispanics were more likely to major in business than nonHispanic Whites, which, based on their projected population
increase, is predicted to expand their college enrollment and
fuel future growth for many business schools. However, Leppel did not investigate which discipline within business may
be more attractive to Hispanic students.
Methods used for students to select college majors have
been studied previously (Cohen & Hanno, 1993; Kim,
Markham, & Cangelosi, 2002; Lackland & DeLisi, 2001;
Leppel, Williams, & Waldauer, 2001; Porter & Umbach,
2006). Robertson (2000) determined that students use many
factors when selecting their courses, including work experience, interest and success in previous similar courses.
Boudarbat (2008) determined that anticipated earnings in
their field of choice had a significant influence on Canadian community college students’ choice of major and that
students who had been employed prior to beginning their
academic careers were more responsive to earnings variations than were students who had no prior work experience Others have more narrowly focused attention on
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
126
S. N. CORY ET AL.
student selection of discipline within the business school
(Malgwi, Howe, & Burnaby, 2005; Noel, Michaels, & Levas,
2003; Pritchard, Potter, & Saccucci, 2004; Strasser, Ozgur,
& Schroeder, 2002) but no agreement about the determining
factor(s) used to make this choice has been achieved.
Investigation of role models has determined that they
can often directly influence individuals’ career aspirations
(Hackett, Esposito, & O’Halloran, 1989; Nauta, Epperson,
& Khan, 1998). Role models and the influence of mothers
and other family members have been found to significantly
influence the educational and career aspirations of Hispanic
women, (Cardoza, 1991) and Flores and Obasi (2005) reported that mentors and role models were instrumental in affecting the career decisions of Hispanic high school students.
Ceja (2004) completed qualitative interviews with Chicana
high school seniors and found a noteworthy role of parents
in the development of their career aspirations.
The influences of others on college students’ choice of
major has been studied, but only in a very limited manner
with Hispanic students. The focus of much research using
Hispanic students as subjects often deals more with them
simply attaining a college degree of any sort. One stream of
research addresses issues that tend to affect Hispanic students
more than others, such as the added challenges many of them
face because of getting minimal support from friends and
family in their pursuit of a college degree (Pluviose, 2007),
their tendency to be at risk for finishing high school (Solberg, Carlstrom, Howard, & Jones, 2007), or their notable
reliance on 2-year colleges for starting their postsecondary
education (Gonzalez & Hilmer, 2006). Additionally, as noted
by Rivera, Blumberg, Chen, Ponterotto, and Flores (2007),
research on Hispanics has primarily focused on Mexican
American women. Johnson-Bailey (2004) studied retention
and participation issues affecting Black female graduate students enrolled in programs within a college of education.
They found that one of four factors influencing retention was
networking by Black students, but no evidence was provided
indicating this may also have influenced choice of major.
As indicated previously, although the focus of much research has dealt with the unique challenges Hispanic students
face in their academic careers, little has been done to determine why Hispanic students chose a college major or if their
decisions are driven by different information than that of nonHispanic White students. In general, major selection seems
to be driven by many factors, including role model influence,
previous work experience, family culture, and mentors, as
well as job availability, earnings potential, interest, and aptitude in the subject matter. Students have many methods for
gathering information about potential majors, one of which
may be their perceptions about individuals currently practicing the occupation.
It is possible that college students have preconceptions
about members of occupations as they begin their academic
career. These preconceptions, or stereotypes, may actually
impact their decision about their choice of major. According
to Ashmore and Del Boca (1981), a stereotype is a set of
beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people. Individuals simplify and conserve mental resources when they
use stereotyping. According to Macrae, Milne, and Bodenhausen (1994), stereotypes are used for filtering, organizing,
and remembering information. Some feel that occupations
tend to attract individuals with certain characteristics. For
example, many individuals may have preconceptions about
the attributes of accountants, computer programmers, engineers, social workers, or insurance agents. However, these
preconceptions may be misconceptions. Given that Hispanics now represent 11% of the college-aged population in
the United States, getting an idea about their stereotypical
views of selected business occupations, as compared with
non-Hispanic White students, may be useful as colleges try
to attract more Hispanics to major in business disciplines.
Little work has been done that targets Hispanics in this
manner and not many studies specifically use Hispanic students as participants. Exceptions include Leppel (2001), who
explored the impact of Hispanic ethnicity on the business major, and Landry, Moyes, and Cortes (2004), who examined
ethical perceptions of Hispanic students by major and by gender. Erlach (2000) addressed the problem of few Hispanics in
the United States professoriate to serve as effective role models for aspiring Hispanic students. Most previous research has
dealt with Hispanic consumer choice and marketing issues
(Hernandez, Cohen, & Garcia, 2000; Kara & Kara, 1996),
their job satisfaction (Moyes, Owusu-Ansah, & Ganguli,
2006), and especially Hispanic entrepreneurs (Shim & Eastlick, 1998; Shinnar & Young, 2008; Smith-Hunter, 2006).
The present study was designed to investigate whether
differences exist in Hispanic and non-Hispanic White undergraduate students’ perceptions of personality traits of the
members of three different business occupations. The professions studied were bankers, accountants, and marketing
managers.
METHOD
A semantic differential instrument, similar to the instrument
used by Cory, Beer, Reeves, and Nouyrigat (2006), Beer and
Cory (1996), Davidson and Etherington (1995), and Cory
(1992) was designed to gather information about students’
perceptions of the personality traits of members of three occupations: bankers, accountants, and marketing managers.
These occupations were selected based on statistics published by the Department of Labor indicating the majority
of business students find jobs in finance, banking, and as
stockbrokers as well as in service areas, including accounting and marketing. Additionally, these occupations were used
by Cory and we felt the students in the present study should
be familiar with them.
Students were presented with 15 pairs of personality traits
which could be descriptive of a member of each of the three
HISPANIC COLLEGE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS
C1
C1 C11
C2 C21
Very Fairly Slightly Neither Slightly Fairly Very
Aggressive _____ _____ ______ ______ ______ ______ ____Timid
FIGURE 1
C2
C12
C22
Rating scale.
FIGURE 2
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
127
occupations. Each pair of terms was separated by a 7-line
measuring stick and students chose which of each pair of
words they felt was more descriptive of a member of the
occupation indicated. Students were told to think of a member of the respective profession and then to place a mark
between each pair of descriptive terms, based on the strength
of the occupation’s association with the term. For example,
Figure 1 shows how the terms “Aggressive” and “Timid”
were presented to the students.
If the term on the left was selected, the response was coded
as 3, 2, or 1, based on the strength indicated (i.e., very, fairly,
or slightly, respectively) and –3, –2, or –1 if the term on
the right was selected, again based on the strength indicated
(i.e., very, fairly, or slightly, respectively). If the response
was “neither,” the response was coded as zero. The terms
and coding methods were the same as those used by Cory
(1992).
First, t scores were computed to determine whether differences occurred between the Hispanic and the non-Hispanic
White students’ perceptions of these personality traits. The
t statistic is a means test used to identify whether a given
trait is significant on a univariate basis but does not provide information on these personality traits taken as a whole.
Therefore, to further investigate our findings, a supervised
learning technique (Roiger & Geatz, 2003) was used to analyze the data. Supervised learning is a process of forming a
general concept definition by observing specific examples of
the concept to be learned. Individuals use models that help
them identify objects of similar structure, which is called
induction-based supervised learning.
Supervised Learning
Supervised learning has two purposes. First, supervised
learning is used to build classification models from sets of
data that have examples and nonexamples of the concepts individuals want to learn from. Each example or nonexample
is called an instance of the data. Second, once a classification
model is built, the model is used to define a newly presented
instance into a category. Further, supervised learning models
are designed to classify, estimate, or predict future outcomes.
The data are divided into two sets. One set is called the training set and these data are used to train the model. The second
set is called the test set and these data are used to see how
well the model classifies the data. The goal is to build classification models that show consistency and have high predictive accuracy. Classification correctness is best calculated
by presenting previously unseen instances as a test data set.
The predictions of the test data can be summarized in a table
known as a confusion matrix, which is shown in Figure 2.
Two-class confusion matrix.
Values along the main diagonal represent correct classifications. For the confusion matrix, the value C11 represents
the total number of class C1 instances correctly classified by
the model. A similar statement can be made for the value
C22 . Values in row Ci represent those instances that belong to
Ci . For example, for i = 1, the instances associated with cells
C11 and C12 are all actually members of C1 . To find the total
number of C1 instances incorrectly classified as members of
Class 2, refer to C12 . Values found in column Ci indicate
those instances that have been classified as members of Ci .
With i = 1, the instances associated with C21 have been classified as members of class C1 . To find the total number of
instances incorrectly classified as members of class C1 , refer
to cell C21 .
The supervised data-mining process used in this study
was performed using the iDA software package, a Microsoft
Excel add-on. The iDA package uses examples from the data
to learn and categorize or cluster cases without making any
assumptions about the data. When learning is unsupervised
(no restrictions on the number of clusters by the user), several optimizing heuristic evaluation functions are used to
cluster input data into naturally occurring groups. This is
a process similar to that used in human learning. Research
has shown that much of human learning involves the storage
and retrieval of data records or instances of data of learned
concepts. Humans use these examples to categorize newly
encountered instances of unknown origin. The data-mining
tool used in the present study works in a similar fashion by
using examples stored in categories (Roiger & Geatz, 2003).
After using supervised learning, the Chi-square statistic
was then computed to determine whether Hispanic and nonHispanic White students’ answers varied based on whether
they actually knew someone practicing the occupation. The
goal in this case was to determine whether student responses
may be influenced based on their acquaintance with someone
in the occupation.
Sample
Students from three different U.S. universities participated
in the present study. One university was located in the West,
one in the Southwest, and one in the East. We selected
these universities based on their diverse student body and
faculty. A total of 510 responses were received, of which
404 were completed by Hispanic or non-Hispanic White
students. However, because the focus of the present study
was individuals who had just begun their college studies and
also had limited exposure to working life, attention was focused on Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students who
128
S. N. CORY ET AL.
TABLE 1
Gender and Ethnicity of Respondents Students No Older Than 19 Years of Age
Group
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
Men
Women
Total
Non-Hispanic White
Hispanic
Total
n
%
n
%
n
%
40
62
102
13.38
20.74
34.11
77
120
197
25.75
40.13
65.89
117
182
299
39.13
60.87
—
were no older than 19 years of age. This reduced the sample
size to 299 respondents. As shown in Table 1, there were
197 usable responses from Hispanic students and 102 from
non-Hispanic White students. Just over 60% of the respondents were female. These students were on the threshold of
their academic careers and, as a general rule, should have
some familiarity with the three business professions being
studied.
RESULTS
As shown in Table 2, the set of terms was provided to all
respondents for each of the professions. T tests were used to
identify differences in term rankings between the Hispanic
students and the non-Hispanic White students for each of the
three business professions. A negative t score indicated that
the mean average for Hispanics was higher than that for nonHispanic Whites, and a positive t score indicated the opposite.
Hence, the Hispanic students felt bankers were more unambitious, impulsive, impatient, and awkward, and that accountants were more imaginative, confused, impulsive, rebellious,
and optimistic than did their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Finally, Hispanics felt that marketing managers were
more uncertain, unambitious, indifferent, confused, conservative, impulsive, and awkward than did the non-Hispanic
Whites in our sample. In general, then, with some exceptions, Hispanics had more negative stereotypical images of
members of these occupations than did their non-Hispanic
White counterparts.
Next, using the results of the t tests, supervised learning
was used to determine whether the responses for each profession could be identified as Hispanic or non-Hispanic White.
The results are shown in Table 3. First, a subset of data (the
training set) was used to train the model. Then, the model
was tested to see how well it predicted the responses of 25
Hispanic and 25 non-Hispanic White students. As shown in
Table 3, non-Hispanic White students were properly classified most often based on their perceptions of bankers (80%),
followed by marketing managers (60%). Hispanic students
were properly classified most often based on their perceptions of marketing managers (64%). Beyond these results,
the model did not correctly detect differences between the
Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students in the present
study. This suggests that there were few significant differences in the overall view of someone in these occupations
between the Hispanic and the non-Hispanic White students
in the sample.
TABLE 2
Results of t Tests for Differences Between Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White Students In Three Business Occupations
Term
Bankers
Accountants
Marketing Managers
Aggressive–Timid
Confident–Uncertain
Ambitious–Unambitious
Forceful–Shy
Imaginative–Dull
Enthusiastic–Indifferent
Intelligent–Confused
Outspoken–Conservative
Impulsive–Methodical
Rebellious–Conforming
Impatient–Patient
Informal–Formal
Independent–Submissive
Enterprising–Awkward
Optimistic–Pessimistic
–0.79
1.13
1.96∗
0.64
–0.84
–0.92
1.05
–0.74
−2.60∗∗
–1.49
–1.93†
–1.66
–0.29
2.64∗∗
–0.86
–1.33
0.20
0.43
0.06
–2.88∗
–0.82
2.16∗
–1.32
–4.62∗∗
–2.16∗
–1.09
–0.68
–0.73
–0.93
–1.82†
1.07
1.70†
1.66†
1.32
–0.52
2.01∗
2.62∗
1.65†
–1.75†
0.25
0.88
1.42
–0.18
2.94∗∗
1.36
Note. Statistically different term is underlined.
= .10.∗ p = .05.∗∗ p = .01.
†p
HISPANIC COLLEGE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS
129
TABLE 3
Confusion Matrices for Each of the Three Occupations
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
Occupation
Banker
Actually Non-Hispanic White
Actually Hispanic
Total
Accountant
Actually Non-Hispanic White
Actually Hispanic
Total
Marketing manager
Actually Non-Hispanic White
Actually Hispanic
Total
Classified as
Non-Hispanic White
Classified as Hispanic
Total
% Correct
20
17
37
5
8
13
25
25
50
80%
32%
56%
12
11
23
13
14
27
25
25
50
48%
56%
52%
15
9
24
10
16
26
25
25
50
60%
64%
62%
Finally, the possibility that actually knowing someone in
the occupations may have influenced the students’ attribute
selection was tested. Student responses were grouped into
three categories: (a) attribute on the left was chosen, (b)
attribute on the right was chosen, and (c) neither attribute
was chosen. The chi-square test for differences was then
used to determine whether each group of student responses
might have been influenced because they knew someone in
the occupation. Results for Hispanic students are shown in
Table 4 and for non-Hispanic White students in Table 5.
As shown in Table 4, Hispanic student responses were
most often different for bankers, based on whether they
knew someone in that occupation. Responses were statistically different, at least at the 10% level, for 13 of the 45
total responses (8 of the 15 terms for bankers and 4 of the
15 terms for accountants, but only 1 of the 15 terms for
marketing managers). Results presented in Table 5 indicate
that non-Hispanic White student responses were most often
statistically different, at least at the 10% level, for 14 of the
45 total responses (5 of the 15 terms for accountants and
marketing managers and in 4 of the terms for bankers).
If students actually knew someone practicing in the occupation, their responses were significantly different from students who did not know someone practicing the occupation
for about one third of the comparisons (13/45 for Hispanics
and 14/45 for the non-Hispanic Whites). These results lend
support to the supposition that stereotypes can be affected by
a variety of sources, including whether someone has actually
been exposed to a member of the stereotypical group under
study. Hence, one determining factor students may use to address the stereotype issue is personal knowledge, rather than
society’s stereotypical imprint.
TABLE 4
Hispanic Students’ Chi-Square Results for Differences Regarding Knowing or Not Knowing Someone in the Occupation
Term
Aggressive–Timid
Confident–Uncertain
Ambitious–Unambitious
Forceful–Shy
Imaginative–Dull
Enthusiastic–Indifferent
Intelligent–Confused
Outspoken–Conservative
Impulsive–Methodical
Rebellious–Conforming
Impatient–Patient
Informal–Formal
Independent–Submissive
Enterprising–Awkward
Optimistic–Pessimistic
†p
= .10.∗ p = .05.∗∗ p = .01.
Bankers
Accountants
Marketing Managers
3.7099∗
3.5972∗
2.0688
10.8115∗∗
4.3722∗
9.1316∗∗
1.2644
1.9155
0.6739
5.2394∗
0.9026
0.0183
1.2594
4.6857∗
2.7372†
0.8346
7.6170∗
4.5953∗
0.0358
1.7625
0.6426
1.0605
1.8239
1.9806
0.1705
0.0177
0.3612
5.3219∗
2.6608†
1.1596
0.0239
0.0041
0.0000
0.0240
3.7414∗
1.5795
0.2148
0.9796
0.0009
0.1312
0.5149
0.1385
0.7723
0.0732
0.7195
130
S. N. CORY ET AL.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
TABLE 5
Non-Hispanic White Students’ Chi-Square Results for Differences Regarding Knowing or Not Knowing Someone in the
Occupation
Term
Bankers
Accountants
Marketing Managers
Aggressive–Timid
Confident–Uncertain
Ambitious–Unambitious
Forceful–Shy
Imaginative–Dull
Enthusiastic–Indifferent
Intelligent–Confused
Outspoken–Conservative
Impulsive–Methodical
Rebellious–Conforming
Impatient–Patient
Informal–Formal
Independent–Submissive
Enterprising–Awkward
Optimistic–Pessimistic
6.3627∗
0.7392
4.0251∗
0.0675
4.4197∗
5.4719∗
0.0663
0.7981
1.2961
0.0022
0.0826
0.0193
0.1014
0.3443
2.2049
1.4189
0.6469
5.9979∗
6.7340∗∗
2.6096
12.7459∗∗
4.3367∗
1.4464
3.2133†
0.0221
0.8505
0.0000
1.5117
1.2439
2.1351
0.9576
2.2749
2.7839†
0.2437
4.4172∗
1.1734
3.1457†
3.0061†
2.2098
0.0135
5.4608∗
0.0425
0.0052
0.8513
2.6286
†p
= .10.∗ p = .05.∗∗ p = .01.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
In the present study, we examined the question of whether
differences exist in Hispanic and non-Hispanic White undergraduate students’ perceptions of personality traits of the
members of three different business occupations: accountants, bankers, and marketing managers. A sample of students
from three different universities was surveyed about their perceptions of members of these occupations. T tests were used
to identify statistically significant differences in those perceptions. Results suggest that the occupational perceptions
between the two groups of students were not significantly different. In other words, although Hispanic and non-Hispanic
White students differed in some of their stereotypical beliefs about members of these business occupations, they also
shared many. In addition, chi-square test results revealed that
responses from both groups of students were somewhat affected based on whether they knew someone practicing the
occupation. These results suggest that stereotypes are affected more by whether the student knows someone in that
occupation than by ethnicity.
For educators, simply assuming students’ perceptions of
business occupations differ based on ethnicity could be a
mistake. Although occupational stereotypes may vary somewhat by culture, other factors may exert a more powerful
influence on student choice of major and occupation. Specifically, knowing someone practicing the occupation may be
helpful for students as they choose a business discipline.
Consequently, the more experience all students can have
with individuals in a profession, the less they need to rely
on stereotypes as a cognitive heuristic in choosing a major.
Thus, we recommended that business schools encourage
active student involvement with industry professionals to
encourage pursuit of relevant majors. Programs that bring
professionals to campus or enable students to interact with
professionals in industry off campus could be invaluable in
assisting students select a major. For example, an Executive in Residence program or Professor for a Day program
inviting industry professionals to campus to speak to and
work with students could provide a valuable experience. In
addition, internships can confirm students’ choice of major
by enabling them to interact with professionals in the workplace. This activity not only provides valuable real-world
experience, but also enables them to familiarize themselves
with individuals in the occupation and to meet potential role
models and mentors. Bringing industry to the classroom or
the classroom to industry may provide students with the most
realistic, relevant information on which to base their decision
of a major and ultimately their choice of a career.
REFERENCES
Ashmore, R. D., & Del Boca, F. K. (1981). Conceptual approaches to stereotypes and stereotyping. In D. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Cognitive processes in
stereotyping an intergroup behavior (pp. 1–35). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Beer, F. M., & Cory, S. N. (1996). Accounting students’ perceptions of certified public accountants: Gender differences. Journal of Business Issues,
1(1), 91–96.
Boudarbat, B. (2008). Field of study choice by community college students
in Canada. Economics of Education Review, 27(1), 79–93.
Cardoza, D. (1991). College attendance and persistence among Hispanic
women: An examination of some contributing factors. Sex Roles, 24,
133–137.
Ceja, M. (2004). Chicana college aspirations and the role of parents: Developing educational resiliency. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 3,
338–362.
Cohen, J., & Hanno, D. (1993). An analysis of underlying constructs affecting the choice of accounting as a major. Issues in Accounting Education,
8, 219–238.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 22:30 11 January 2016
HISPANIC COLLEGE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS
Cory, S. N. (1992). Quality and quantity of accounting students and the
stereotypical accountant: Is there a relationship? The Journal of Accounting Education, 10(1), 1–24.
Cory, S. N., Beer, F. M., Reeves, T. E., & Nouyrigat, G. (2006). Do
differences in occupational stereotypes exist between students in the
U.S. and France? International Journal of Business Research, 6, 201–
208.
Davidson, R. A., & Etherington, L. D. (1995). Personalities of accounting students and public accountants: Implications for accounting educators and the profession. Journal of Accounting Education, 13, 425–
444.
Erlach, D. (2000). Hispanics and higher education: Multicultural myopia.
Journal of Education for Business, 75, 283–285.
Flores, Y. L., & Obasi, E. M. (2005). Mentors’ influence on Mexican American students’ career and educational development. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 33, 146–164.
Gonzalez, A., & Hilmer, M. J. (2006). The role of 2-year colleges in the
improving situation of Hispanic postsecondary education. Economics of
Education Review, 25, 249–257.
Hackett, G., Esposito, D., & O’Halloran, M. S. (1989). A self-efficacy
approach to the career development of women. Journal of Vocational
Behavior, 35, 164–180.
Hernandez, S. A., Cohen, J. F., & Garcia, H. L. (2000). Hispanic acculturation: Conceptual and modeling issues. The Journal of Applied Business
Research, 16(4), 73–83.
Johnson-Bailey, J. (2004). Hitting and climbing the proverbial wall: Participation and retention issues for Black graduate women. Race, Ethnicity
and Education, 7, 331–349.
Kara, A., & Kara, N. R. (1996). Ethnicity and consumer choice: A study
of Hispanic decision processes across different acculturation levels. The
Journal of Applied Business Research, 12(2), 22–34.
Kim, D., Markham, F. S., & Cangelosi, J. D. (2002). Why students pursue
the business degree: A comparison of business majors across universities.
Journal of Education for Business, 78, 28–32.
Lackland, A., & DeLisi, R. (2001). Students’ choices of college majors
that are gender traditional and nontraditional. Journal of College Student
Development, 42(1), 39–48.
Landry, R., Moyes, G. D., & Cortes, A. C. (2004). Ethical perceptions
among Hispanic students: Differences by major and gender. Journal of
Education for Business, 80, 102–108.
Leppel, K. (2001). Race, Hispanic ethnicity, and the future of the college
business major in the United States. Journal of Education for Business,
76, 209–215.
Leppel, K., Williams, M., & Waldauer, C. (2001). The impact of parental
occupation and socioeconomic status on choice of college major. Journal
of Family and Economic Issues, 22, 373–394.
Macrae, C. N., Milne, A.B., & Bodenhausen, G.V. (1994). Stereotypes as
energy saving devices: A peek inside the cognitive toolbox. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 66(1), 37–47.
131
Malgwi, C. A., Howe, M. A., & Burnaby, P. A. (2005). Influences on
students’ choice of college major. Journal of Education for Business, 80,
275–282.
Moyes, G. D., Owusu-Ansah, S., & Ganguli, G. (2006). Factors influencing the level of job satisfaction of Hispanic accounting professionals: A
perceptual study. Journal of Business & Economic Studies, 12(1), 12–26.
Nauta, M. M., Epperson, D. L., & Kahn, J. H. (1998). A multiple-groups
analysis of predictors of higher level career aspirations among women
in mathematics, science, and engineering majors. Journal of Counseling
Psychology, 45, 483–496.
Noel, M., Michaels, C., & Levas, M. (2003). The relationship of personality
traits and self-monitoring behavior to choice of business major. Journal
of Education for Business, 78, 153–157.
Pluviose, D. (2007, December 27). Black, brown and college bound. Diverse
Issues in Higher Education, 24(23), 7. Retrieved November 4, 2009, from
http://diverseeducation.com/article/10441/1.php
Porter, S. R., & Umbach, P. D. (2006). College major choice: An analysis
of person-environment fit. Research in Higher Education, 47, 429–449.
Pritchard, R., Potter, G., & Saccucci, M. (2004). The selection of a business
major: Elements influencing student choice and implications for outcomes
assessment. Journal of Education for Business, 79, 152–157.
Rivera, L. M., Blumberg, F., Chen, E. C., Ponterotto, J. G., & Flores, L. Y.
(2007). The effects of perceived barriers, role models and acculturation
on the career self-efficacy and career consideration of Hispanic women.
The Career Development Quarterly, 56, 47–61.
Robertson, I. F. (2000). Influence on choice of course made by university
Year 1 bioscience students: A case study. International Journal of Science
Education, 22, 1201–1218.
Roiger, R. J., & Geatz, M. W. (2003). Data mining: A tutorial-based primer.
New York: Addison Wesley.
Schmidt, P. (2007). Academe’s Hispanic future. In P. McCaffrey (Ed.),
Hispanic Americans (pp. 169–179). New York: H.W. Wilson Company.
Shim, S., & Eastlick, M. A. (1998). Characteristics of Hispanic female
business owners: An exploratory study. Journal of Small Business Management, 36(3), 18–34.
Shinnar, R. S., & Young, C. A. (2008). Hispanic immigrant entrepreneurs
in the Las Vegas metropolitan area: Motivations for entry into and outcomes of self-employment. Journal of Small Business Management, 46,
242–262.
Smith-Hunter, A. (2006). An initial look at the characteristics of Hispanic
women business owners and their businesses. The Business Renaissance
Quarterly: Enhancing the Quality of Life at Work, 1, 101–140.
Solberg, V. S. H., Carlstrom, A. H., Howard, K. A. S., & Jones, J. E.
(2007). Classifying at-risk high school youth: The influence of exposure
to community violence and protective factors on academic and health
outcomes. The Career Development Quarterly, 55, 313–327.
Strasser, S., Ozgur, C., & Schroeder, D. (2002). Selecting a business college
major: An analysis of criteria and choice using the analytical hierarchy
process. Mid-American Journal of Business, 17(2), 47–56.