COMPARISON OF ADULT MALE AND ADULT FEMALE LEARNERS IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE ON LEVINSON'S EIGHTEEN DIMENSIONS OF LIFE DEVELOPMENT

The purpose of this study was: to compare and contrast samples of adult (age 28-45) male and female community college students in terms of their self-reported status on eighteen dimensions of adult development as postulated by Levinson (1978) and assessed through the Developmental Task Inventory; and to draw insights from the findings regarding the need for recognizing sex differences in developmentally-oriented curricular and co-curricular offerings for the adult learner in the community college. Three hypotheses were postulated and tested. They included: Hypothesis 1: There are significant differences between the mean responses for samples of adult male and adult female learners (age 28-32) in a community college for the aggregate (12) of Developmental Task Inventory items comprising Levinson's life stage, the Age Thirty Transition. Hypothesis 2: There are significant differences between the mean responses for samples of adult male and adult female learners (age 33-39) in a community college for the aggregate (12) of Developmental Task Inventory items comprising Levinson's life stage, Settling Down. Hypothesis 3: There are significant differences between the mean responses for samples of adult male and adult female learners (age 40-45) in a community college for the aggregate (12) of Developmental Task Inventory items comprising Levinson's life stage, The Mid-Life Transition. The sample (N = 210) used in this study was selected randomly from the total population of adults (age 28-45) attending the Loudoun Campus of Northern Virginia Community College during the 1979 Fall Quarter. The Developmental Task Inventory (DTI), a test instrument designed by the researcher, was mailed to these students to elicit their self-reported developmental status in terms of the three life stages postulated by Levinson. The DTI was judged by an expert panel to have face validity; also, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated for each developmental task and ranged from .72 to .99. A total of 180 students (85.7%) completed the test instrument. Each of the three hypotheses was tested using a t test. No significant differences were found between the mean scores of the adult male and adult female community college learners for the DTI items comprising their life stage. All three hypotheses were rejected at the .05 level. In addition, no differences were found at the .01 level between the respondents' mean scores for the DTI items comprising each of the individual developmental tasks within their life stage. On the basis of this study, it was concluded: that there are no developmental differences between community college adult males and females (age 28-45) regarding Levinson's model of life development; that if a community college uses the Levinson paradigm as the foundation for its developmentally-oriented offerings, there is no need to specialize solely on the basis of a student's sex; and that Levinson's developmental model does not fully describe the developmental status of the community college adult male or female learner.