ROYCE: EDUCATION OF FISHERY SCIENTISTS 



In the interest of saving space, no more than 

 five subjects were coded for any one reply. When 

 two or more subjects listed under the same code 

 number were named, that code number was listed 

 two or more times. When the answer was "all 

 biology courses," however, the biology code num- 

 ber was listed once. 



Further comments were classified in groups 

 under the following general headings: 



0) Miscellaneous comments or no comment 



1) Increase practice and experience 



2) Improve quality of courses 



3) Improve curriculum 



4) Help select and understand jobs 



5) Arrange continuing education 



COMPARATIVE USEFULNESS OF 

 SUBJECTS 



After the data had been coded, they were 

 sorted and listed by the computer. The number 

 of times that each subject was mentioned by re- 

 spondents in each category was determined, and 

 the total was computed as a percentage of the 

 number of respondents. 



The percentage of respondents that mentioned 

 a subject as most useful, as least useful, or one 

 that the respondent wished he had added to his 

 college courses or taken in greater depth is re- 

 garded as an index of the usefulness of the sub- 

 ject. Inclusion in the most useful or the least 

 useful category depended on inclusion of the 

 subject in the respondent's training. The sub- 

 jects of average usefulness were not mentioned, 

 and there is no way of considering such a status 

 from the data. The last class of subjects, sub- 

 jects that the respondent wished he had added 

 or taken in greater depth, is, of course, not lim- 

 ited to subjects taken in the university; but pre- 

 sumably many respondents would think first of 

 subjects that they had taken but not as com- 

 pletely as they might have. 



One of the difficulties in evaluating answers 

 was the distinction between a general course, 

 for example, in biology, and a collection of ad- 

 vanced courses that might also be called by the 

 same name, in the example given, biology. Some 

 respondents made this distinction clear; others 



did not, especially some who had taken their 

 college work many years ago. 



The outstanding characteristic of the respon- 

 ses is the inclusion of almost every subject among 

 someone's most useful subjects and someone 

 else's least useful subjects. It appears that sub- 

 jects considered by most people to be very use- 

 ful were ranked as the least useful by a few 

 people who had special difficulties with a course, 

 such as a quarrel with the instructor or a bad 

 grade. Accordingly, it is felt that a designation 

 of a subject as least useful by 1 or 2% of the re- 

 spondents is not of particular significance unless 

 the course was one that relatively few respond- 

 ents would be expected to take. 



The rating of subject groups is shown in Table 

 2. The groups are ranked starting with the one 

 that was considered to be most useful by the 

 greatest percentage of respondents and ending 

 with the one that was considered to be least use- 

 ful by the greatest percentage of respondents. 

 Only the top twelve in any category have been 

 ranked. The results are discussed in the follow- 

 ing paragraphs. 



The ranking of English-scientific writing as 

 the most useful group of subjects may surprise 

 many scientists, especially the younger ones who 

 are preoccupied with learning science, but un- 

 doubtedly it reflects the broad experience of the 

 applied scientists, who have repeatedly faced 

 the need to communicate their findings. Only 

 a few respondents rated these subjects as the 

 least useful, and some of these specified that they 

 objected to English literature or creative writing 

 courses. 



Public speaking, another method of communi- 

 cation, ranked eleventh among the subjects listed 

 as the most useful and fifth among the subjects 

 that should have been added or taken in greater 

 depth. Those rankings probably reflect the fail- 

 ure of many fishery scientists to take public 

 speaking and their general need for it later. 



Communication in a foreign language was at 

 the other end of the scale, however, first among 

 the courses rated as least useful. Such courses 

 are apparently a waste of time for most students 

 but are needed by a few. 



The next surprise for those who consider fish- 

 eries as essentially biology is the second place 



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