The major purpose of this study was to investigate whether a career-oriented, freshman English class (WSACP), was beneficial in increasing student cognitive complexity beyond normal maturational development. Cognitive complexity was assessed along the Perry scheme of intellectual and ethical development by the Measure of Intellectual Development (MID). A pretest/ posttest quasi-experimental design was implemented to compare cognitive changes among an experimental (n=23) and two control groups (n=21/n=23). A secondary purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of WSACP on student retention rates.

This study was based on the assumptions that an effective college-level career development program would: (a) be developmentally oriented, focusing on cognitive maturation through an emphasis on the writing process, (b) be taught within the regular academic curriculum, and thus be taken for academic credit, and (c) be collaboratively designed and taught.

Using analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures, the study found that the general cognitive complexity of the experimental group increased at significantly higher rates (at the .05 level) than that of the two combined control groups. The retention results. although encouraging, revealed no statistically significant differences between WSACP and 266 other freshman students.

The major recommendations emanating from this study were: (a) institutions of higher education should encourage the development of "collaborative" courses in the areas of English and career development. Research should be conducted to substantiate the career development results of this study, and investigate the effects of such an approach on student writing, (b) the dimension of cognitive complexity should be included in the development of career programs, and (c) first-term career development activities should be included in any comprehensive retention program.