Values and vocational choice: a study of value differences in medical, nursing and psychology students

Groups of nursing, medical and psychology first year students completed the Rokeach Value Survey, which measures both terminal and instrumental values. A third of the terminal and half the instrumental values yielded significant differences. Generally it seemed that the nursing students were more similar to the medical students than to the psychology students in their rank-ordered values for terminal values and to a lesser extent for the instrumental values. Speculations as to the effects of predispositional versus socialization variables on value system structure and change are made for these groups. The problem of confounding variables is also addressed.