Vocational Interest Blank
Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SVIB-SCII) Strong was among a group that developed a derivative of the Carnegie Interest Inventory during the 1920s. The research conducted by Clarence Yoakum provided Edward K. Strong with ideas on the measurement of interests leading to his development of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB) which placed the technical and usage levels of vocational interest measurement near the technical and usage levels of the measurements of intelligence and aptitudes (Darley & Hagenah, 1955). Strong systematically collected large amounts of test data showing that people in different occupations can be distinguished from each other by the simple procedure of asking them to check their likes and dislikes on a long checklist (Campbell & Hansen, 1981; Super, 1942).
Strong’s inventory was developed by means of a strictly empirical procedure, making few psychological assumptions and developing his scoring formulas on the basis of correlations of responses with criteria (Cronbach, 1949). Modifying the initial empirical methods of differentiating occupations one from another by using factor analysis, Strong then developed a method of identifying items within the interest tests to distinguish characteristics of specific occupations from those of people in general (Hansen, 1990). These responses to items that members of an occupation have in common constitute normative scales on which items are internally consistent or homogeneous only for the occupational group which they differentiate, thereby allowing counselors to report the degree to which the test-taker has interests similar to those of persons in a given occupation (Zytowski, 1973).
Strong’s initial interest inventory consisted of a list of four hundred occupations, school subjects, hobbies, types of activities, personal characteristics, and similar items with the examinee indicating like, dislike, or indifference to each activity and whether or not the identified characteristic was possessed. These results were then compared to the responses of other persons known to have achieved success in a given occupation. Strong’s normative scales compared interests of an individual with those of persons in a particular occupation or, perhaps, a college major (Campbell & Hansen, 1981; Super, 1942). Campbell and Hansen maintained while the SVIB “cannot tell anyone where he will succeed . . . (it can) act as a mirror to reflect back the individual’s interests in a manner allowing comparison of his likes and dislikes to those in individuals in specified occupations . . . (where he is) likely to find job satisfaction” (p. 2).
The SVIB, published in 1927, has been revised twice for men (1938 and 1966). The women’s SVIB, first published in 1933 and revised twice (1946 and 1969), is thought to be psychometrically superior to the men’s form because new techniques and analyses were tried with the men’s form, evaluated, and then modifications were made on the women’s revision. Renamed the Srong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) in 1974, the choice was made to merge the female and male inventories, marking the beginning of an effort to provide equal career exploration opportunities for both women and men (Hansen, 1986). The SCII later underwent revision in 1981 and again in 1986 when SVIB items were selected to represent each of Holland’s personality types. The General Occupational Themes were broadened with the emphasis shifting from offering predominantly professionally oriented occupations to offering a mix of professional occupations along with nonprofessional or vocational-technical, thus, increasing the utility of the inventory to include those with a wider range of occupational and educational goals. Hackett and Watkins (1995) observed that the 1985 revision to renorm the occupational samples, to increase the number of occupational scales, and to decrease the gender restrictiveness has been successful.
Used widely with a varied clientele including high school and college students, cross-cultural populations, and minorities in a variety of settings, e.g., educational, business, and rehabilitation, the SII is also used extensively in research efforts (Hansen, 1986). While Campbell and Hansen (1981) purported “From its inception in 1927, the Strong Vocational Interest Blank was an empirical, atheoretical instrument” (p. 28), Strong’s development of assessment procedures cannot be ignored as the SVIB and SCII are among the most widely used interest inventories today and still have a “profound impact on interest measurement” (Walsh & Osipow, 1986, p. vii).
Holland’s Theory Based Interest Inventories
Holland’s Vocational Preference Inventory. Holland’s (1966) Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) is based on his earlier psychological rationale (1959) that it is possible to categorize people into six types: realistic, intellectual, social, conventional, enterprising, and artistic. As Holland developed the VPI, he also developed his theory of careers (Holland, 1966). The true significance of Holland’s work is that in each case, he developed his theory first and then designed instruments based on this theory. Holland’s theory was developed by extensively examining the vocational interest, vocational choice, and personality literature to identify interest and personality factors, then determining the relationship between these factors. Scales were developed using occupational titles as items representative of the factors to measure the personality factors. Holland originally developed 7 scales: Physical activity, Intellectual, Responsibility, Conformity, Verbal activity, Emotionality, and Reality Orientation. These were later reduced to 6 and renamed: Realistic, Investigative, Social, Conventional, Enterprising, and Artistic.
Holland (1973) developed the Self Directed Search (SDS) as a result of the continued development of his theory of careers. Holland (1973) saw the SDS as “one way in which the classification and the theory have been used to organize the assessment of the person and world of occupations within he same framework” (p. 86), viewing the SDS as simulating “in an explicit ay what counselors, parents, psychologists, and personnel workers do in more intuitive and less precise ways” (p. 87).
Holland’s Self-Directed Search. The SDS (Holland & Rayman, 1986) was developed for two purposes: to increase the number of people a counselor could successfully work with, and to provide vocational counseling to those who do not have, or who do not wish to have, access to a counselor. First published in 1971 and revised in 1977 and 1985, the SDS provides the test taker an assessment booklet which, when filled out, yields a hierarchical three-letter classification code with the first letter representing the strongest preference for a particular personality type. The three-letter code is then used in conjunction with the Occupations Finder to locate suitable occupations, simulating what a person and a counselor might do together over a period of several interviews. By eliminating unnecessary individual counseling and reducing the time needed to proctor, mail, score, and interpret interest inventories, counselors could spend more time with those who need individual counseling.
Based on Holland’s (1985) theory of career choice, the SDS was developed using the hypothesis that certain characteristics, i.e., competencies, preferred activities and self-ratings of abilities, of the individual as well as vocational interests are important in the vocational choice process (Campbell, 1988). Identified by Holland’s research (1985), six personality types, i.e., Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional, serve as the basis to relate a person’s self-assessment of abilities and interests to appropriate occupations. Also based on Holland’s (1985) theory is the concept that a relationship exists between the person’s characteristics and a work environment, and that individuals will achieve greater success, satisfaction, and stability in occupations where the work environment fits their personality. Thus, the SDS can be used in identifying appropriate career choices.
Holland and Rayman (1986) considered the SDS to be an advance in interest assessment and vocational treatment for several reasons:
1. A person’s vocational aspirations, interests, competencies, and self-rated abilities are organized by a particular theory and related to an occupational classification system using the same theory.
2. Self-administered, self-scored, and self-interpreted, the SDS can be used with or without a counselor.
3. An ideal innovation, the SDS is an inexpensive assessment-intervention requiring no special training and is compatible with other existing career material.
4. The theoretical base of the SDS demonstrates that long term research and development support continued and constructive revisions.
5. An open inventory, the undisguised groupings of items on the scales communicate the structure of vocational interests to encourage the test taker to think about work and personal characteristics in a systematic way.
6. The SDS and its related theory “represent a technological-theoretical advance” because they provide an “organization for mapping and understanding the massive information about people and occupations and the relation of one to the other” (p. 58).
The SDS consists of an Assessment Booklet, an Occupations Finder, and an interpretative booklet Understanding Yourself and Your Career. Developed to counter complaints that the SDS was not as self-interpreting as promised, the booklet was an effort to permit understanding of the theory behind the SDS rather than a simple description of the personality types (Holland & Rayman, 1986). The booklet also encourages test takers to further investigate the jobs identified as appropriate and to view this list of jobs as only suggestions. Consulting with a counselor is also suggested, and some question the ability of individuals to administer, score, and interpret their own SDS (Brown, 1975; Cutts, 1977; Dolliver & Hansen, 1977).
The Assessment Booklet includes six scales with 38 items per scale in each of three categories: activities, competencies, and occupations, ability ratings in 6 areas, and 8 lines on which to list occupational daydreams, careers the test takers have daydreamed about, and those the test takers have discussed with others. The test taker then scores the responses given and calculates 6 summary scores. Using the summary scores, the test taker obtains a three-letter code determined by the three highest summary scores. The summary code is then used to locate appropriate occupational options listed in the Occupations Finder which contains 1,156 occupations (Holland & Rayman, 1986).
During revisions, additional job titles have been added to the Occupations Finder to make the list more reflective of current occupations. Changes have been made in an attempt to diminish sex differences in responses to the scales by altering selected items on the Occupations Scale. Devised for poor readers, Form E, i.e., Easy, (1979) was a modification of the SDS lowering the reading level several grade levels, i.e., Grade 4, below the standard form, i.e., Grade 8, with the scoring procedure yielding a two-letter rather than a three-letter code. Form E’s Occupations Finder, renamed Job Finder, has been modified to reflect the use of the two-letter rather than three-letter codes (Campbell, 1988; Holland &, Rayman 1986).
Campbell (1988) and Manuele-Adkins (1989) expressed concern about the number of scoring errors made by test takers, the inconsistent use of Holland’s typology across sections of the measure, and questions about test fairness because of the use of raw rather than normed scores. Zener and Schnuelle (1976) compared the SDS, the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI), and no treatment. High school students taking the SDS or VPI evaluated the inventories as positive, were satisfied with their current occupational choice, considering more occupational alternatives than the control group, and the SDS group had less need to see a counselor. Pallas, Dahmann, Gucer, and Holland (1983) reported similar findings with high school and college students, as well as workers. Additionally, Power, Holland, Daiger, and Takai (1979) found that test takers with a clear sense of vocational identity found the SDS experience reassuring.
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