| dc.description.abstract | Most college students change their major at least once, but many college students change their major frequently throughout their postsecondary education. In the current literature, there is no consideration of possible negative effects—particularly stress— frequent major changing has on college students in this already tumultuous time in their lives. Furthermore, there is no consideration of these potential effects on a subgroup of the student population whose members are predisposed to higher levels of stress than the average student—the intellectually gifted.
In this exploratory study, I consider potential negative effects of major changing and the possibility of poor college and career counseling while in high school as a predictor of major changing. Gifted and non-gifted subsamples are compared. Participants in this study were 1,047 students from a large southern university who responded to an online survey. Comparisons between the two subsamples are made using t-tests, and regression analyses are used to explore the relationship between postsecondary guidance counseling and major changing. Results indicate that though there are relatively few significant differences between the two subsamples in their major changing trends, participation in postsecondary guidance counseling while in high school has different effects on the number of major changes made by students in these two groups. | en |
