Exploring Gender Differences on Personal and Social Values of College Students from Institutional Core Values

Abstract – This study explored on how males and females differed on their development needs for personal and social values from the perspective of identified common institutional core values. The study utilized a quantitative descriptive type of research with 141 males or 45.7 percent of the student-respondents while 167 females or 54.3 percent with total sample respondents of 308 students. The most common institutional core values of the HEIs in terms of social aspect includes Service, Compassion, Leadership, Unity, Responsibility, and Respect while for personal values include Excellence, Integrity, God- centeredness, Commitment, Truth, Competence, and Faith. The social values in terms of unity, service, and respect are the top 3 institutional core values they needed to develop further while Excellence, Integrity, and Commitment for personal values. Male students have identified service and compassion with significantly higher needs for further improvement while leadership and responsibility for female respondents in terms of social values. Male respondents have also identified God-Centeredness and commitment with significantly higher needs for further personal development. From this context educational leaders may provide mechanism on how institutional core values will be given more emphasis and measure on delivering quality instruction, conducting research and facilitating extension services through defining goals and objectives of student development programs where specific core values are addressed.

Keywords: commitment, compassion, excellence, faith, integrity, God-centeredness, leadership, responsibility, respect, service, truth, unity, competence