Parry (1983) developed the British version of the attitudes towards women scale (AWS-B); it contained twenty-one items based on Spence et al (1973) version. Each item has five responses, (Strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree). Parry reported data between middle class and working class women. There were four groups of males and females aged sixteen and twenty one years. The groups consisted of thirty-nine male and twenty-seven female trainee engineers, fifty nine female pursuing careers in traditional occupation and fourteen secondary school girls following an engineering linked course. It was found that males were significantly more traditional in their attitudes towards women compared with females. But there was no significant difference in overall attitude that emerged between the male groups.
I have decided to use Parry's AWS-B scale to see if there is a difference in attitudes between males and females.
Hypothesis.
The older generation who completed the questionnaire will have lower attitude scores towards women compared to the younger generation.
Method:.
Design.
This experimental questionnaire identifies peoples attitudes of women between the younger and older generation. All the research was collected between the 11th and the 18th November 2002.
Participants.
The attitudes scores towards women of 63 individuals (34 participants aged 18-25, 29 participants aged 26+, 31 females and 32 males) were collected.
Materials.
The materials needed to conduct this experiment are the AWS-B scale/questionnaire and a debriefing statement (See appendix 1and 2).
Procedure.
Each participant was sat down and made to feel at ease. They were first shown a debriefing statement, which also included general information such as, what age are you? (See appendix 2) which was needed to sort the data into particular categories. The debriefing statement took into consideration all of the ethical issues that could be raised in this experiment, it stated that the participant was able to withdraw any of the responses at any time.
