The identification and analysis of the educational goal preferences of five significant groups in the Bahamas

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree to which five groups in the Bahamas agreed or differed regarding the importance of certain selected educational goals for the public secondary schools.Procedures. Data were collected using a questionnaire adapted from The Educational Goals Survey developed by the National School Boards Association. The questionnaire contained 82 goal statements that respondents were asked to rate according to importance for students to learn, importance for schools to teach, and importance for graduation requirements. The sample consisted of 120 students, 120 parents, and 100 teachers and site administrators (educators) from four rural and four urban public high schools; 100 business persons; and 42 professional staff from the Ministry of Education. Statistical analyses included t-tests , one-way analysis of variance, Pearson product-moment and Spearman correlation coefficients, and Kendall\u27s coefficient of concordance.Major findings. (1) Five role groups identified 33 goals as most important for students to learn, 28 as most important for schools to teach, and 15 which should be required for graduation. (2) A comparison of the rank orderings by the five groups indicated that all groups placed greatest emphasis on basic reading, writing, and computational goals. (3) There were no significant differences among the five groups in their perceptions and ranking of the selected goals. (4) There was a positive relationship between achievement level of the schools with which parents and students were associated, and how the two groups rated the importance of the selected goals.Major conclusions. (1) Goal preferences and rankings are not influenced to any significant degree by membership in role groups. (2) Goals dealing with cognitive learning are of greater importance than those which address the affective and psychomotor domains. Basic reading, writing, and computational goals are most important. (3) Perceptions about which educational goals are most important are inconsistent with the established, official goals of the public school system