ROYCE: EDUCATION OF FISHERY SCIENTISTS 



this dichotomy is the current upsurge in recog- 

 nition of the social problems and the lack of rel- 

 evance of the earlier social science courses. Ec- 

 onomics as a general subject was also judged 

 least useful by some respondents, but resource 

 economics was valued by many and was ranked 

 sixth among those that respondents wished they 

 had added or taken in greater depth. 



Less divergent were the opinions about hu- 

 manities and the liberal arts. This set of sub- 

 jects ranked second among those listed as least 

 useful. A very small proportion of the respon- 

 dents valued them highly, and some explained 

 that courses in music and literature were espe- 

 cially useful in their life but not in their pro- 

 fessions. 



Courses in administration were rarely men- 

 tioned as useful but ranked seventh among the 

 subjects that the respondents wished they had 

 taken. Apparently such courses were seldom 

 taken by the respondents but are needed, espe- 

 cially by many of the older fishery scientists. 



VOLUNTARY OPINIONS REGARDING 

 THE CURRICULUM 



The respondents were asked to comment freely 

 on the training of fishery scientists, and about 

 one-third did so. The opinions were classified 

 and the categories ranked (Table 3). 



Most of the opinions expressed related to the 

 need for extending and improving the curricu- 

 lum. These include six of the eight items enum- 

 erated in Table 3, and these eight items include 

 all comments mentioned by more than 2% of 

 the respondents. The other two groups of com- 

 ments indicate a desire for greater relevance 

 and more practice and experience. 



The prevailing views about improving the 



Table 3. — Voluntary opinions regarding the curriculum 

 expressed by respondents and their ranking. 



Opinion 



Percent 



Develop more technical skills 



Develop more communication skilU 



Develop more business, administration skills 



Include more environmental courses 



Have greater relevancy to real problems in courses 



Increase practice anci experience 



Have less specialization 



Emphasize scientific methods 



8 

 7 

 6 

 6 

 6 

 6 

 5 

 5 



curriculum almost always suggested that some- 

 thing should be added but rarely suggested what 

 should be eliminated. It follows that more ef- 

 fort should be made to relate the curriculum to 

 future roles of fishery scientists as well as to 

 provide ways of acquiring the courses used by 

 only a small proportion of the scientists through 

 night school, seminars, or home study. 



PROPORTION OF SPECLALIZED 

 FISHERY COURSES IN THE CURRICULUM 



The members of PFB were also asked for 

 their opinions about the proportion of specialized 

 fishery courses in the curriculum in various years 

 with various terminal degrees. 



The replies were highly varied, but the aver- 

 age opinion (Table 4) was that the beginning 

 curriculum should contain very few specialized 

 fishery courses and that the final years should 

 contain 50 to 60 Sr specialized fishery courses. 

 The final years are, of course, the junior-senior 

 years of the baccalaureate program and the grad- 

 uate years of the master and doctorate pro- 

 grams. Clearly the average opinion indicated 

 a different upper class curriculum for the stud- 

 ent who ends with a baccalaureate than for the 

 student who plans graduate work at the outset. 



Table 4. — Average opinions of the percentage of the 

 fishery curriculum that should be comprised of specialized 

 fishery courses. 



GROUP COMPARISONS 



The diverse opinions about the subjects sug- 

 gest immediately an inquiry into the relation of 

 the subjects' usefulness to the respondents' pro- 

 fessional activities. The respondents can be di- 

 vided into groups according to position, title, 

 employer, activity, kind of fishery, final degree, 

 major topic of study, and number of years since 

 last degree (Table 1). The groups that can be 



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