The focus of this study was to explore the correlation between age and esteem related to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory. The primary hypothesis was that younger students would have lower levels while older students would have higher levels on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The null hypothesis was that with an increase in the age of college students, there would be no correlation with an increase in self-esteem. For this study, the alternative hypothesis was that with an increase in age in college students there would be a correlation with an increase in self-esteem as well.
For this study, the purpose of our main objective was to analyze whether an increase in the age of college students results in an increase in self-esteem. The student’s self-esteem results were compared between different age groups. This study relied on the honesty system and was only base on the results of what the students reported.
Methods:
The methods and procedures utilized was an online survey that combines the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Esteem Needs Satisfaction Scale, in conjunction with the questions regarding the participant's age and clinical instructor's feedback (See Appendix A: Web Survey). It was then entered into Qualtrics, which allowed the survey to be administered anonymously while also protecting the identity of the survey participant. There were not specific questions that made the identity of the participant easily identifiable. To obtain the sample links to the Qualtrics survey, it was distributed electronically through UTC email to all the graduate, undergraduates, and faculty currently enrolled or employed by the UTC’s School of Nursing through the school's email (@utc.mocs.edu), with permission from April Anderson, the owner of the Listserv database. The sample population was a convenience sample, for the nursing students and teachers used were the most conveniently available people to use as study participants. The participants answered the survey whenever it was most convenient for their schedule within the allotted time. The first survey question contained an informed consent statement where the participant had the option to either willingly give informed consent or deny. If the participant chose to deny the consent then the survey was immediately ended; but if they choose to provide consent, it continue on to the following questions. After the allotted time passed a statistical analysis was performed on all gathered data—with the assistance of Dr. Kemplin—using a Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) program provided through the University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s Office of Information Technology.
Results:
Total number of participants: There was a total of 59 participants
Statistics and data analysis (frequencies or percentages, descriptive statistics):
Overall, there was a strong, positive linear correlation between age and professional role, r = 0.802. The significance threshold was set at 0.05. In 26 question inventory related directly to self-esteem, when the professional role was examined as the independent variable, three responses were found to be statistically significant (p < 0.05). The most significant response (p < 0.05; 0.009) was in response to the question “I am able to do things as well as most other people.” The mean ranks of those in an undergraduate program, graduate program, and faculty members were 30.71, 36.54, and 17.00 respectively. The lower mean ranks indicated higher self-esteem scores. For this item of the self-esteem inventory, the graduate students exhibited lower levels of self-esteem than the undergraduate students, thus rejecting the null hypothesis. The other responses that were statistically significant followed the same distribution where graduate students scored lower than the undergraduate students. Furthermore, when age was the independent variable, six responses were found to be statistically significant. In response to the question, “The opinions of others affects how much I like myself,” (p < 0.05; 0.008) mean ranks were as follows 18-20 years, 21.93; 21-23 years, 25.65; 24-26 years, 36.57; 27-29 years, 2.50; 30-32 years, 35.42; 33-35 years, 18.33; 35 and older, 43.18. The responses from the age group 27 to 29 years were omitted for the purpose of this question as only two respondents from this group participated in the survey. The most significant comparison is between the 24-26-year-olds and 33-35-year-olds. The mean ranks among these groups differ substantially, and it rejects the null hypothesis as the group expected the younger respondents to have consistently lower self-esteem responses compared to their older counterparts.
Conclusion:
In our research study of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to see if there is a connection between age and self-esteem we have a hypothesis and null hypothesis. Our hypothesis is that which an increase in age in college students there will also be an increase in self esteem measured by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. However, a null hypothesis says there is no significance between the two variables in the hypothesis. In our research study, the null hypothesis is that with an increase in age there will be no correlation with an increase in self-esteem. After analysis of our data, we found that our hypothesis was supported and our null hypothesis was rejected. As a result, as age increased self-esteem increased as well. However, we did have a decrease in self-esteem in the 33-35 age group but then self-esteem increased in the 35 and older population which supports our hypothesis and rejects our null hypothesis.
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