Measuring Interests and Attitudes

Presented by:
Anubha Swami
Shanoor Gandhok
Yashaswini Shetty

Introduction

The nature and strength of ones interests and attitudes represent an important
aspect of personality.

These characteristics materially affect educational and occupational

achievement, interpersonal relations and other major phases of daily living.

Their study received its strong impetus from educational and career counseling,
occupational selection.

Interest Inventories: Current Setting

Designed to assess individuals interests in different fields of work with analysis

of interests in educational curricula which leads to career making decisions

The use of interest tests has increased, especially to provide self exploration.

More emphasis on expanding career options which leads to interest

inventories being used to give people options about careers they may not have
considered otherwise

Interest Inventories: Current Setting

Concern about sex fairness: While interest inventories is an objective,

empirical method to evaluate interests, it tends to perpetuate existing group
differences among occupations.

A set of guidelines is established to eliminate sex bias in the wordings of the

inventory items.

Also, recent legislations to promote vocational guidance to disabled people

has prompted the development of picture interest inventories.

The Strong Interest Inventory (SII)

It measures the interests of the individual- NOT

abilities
Its the most researched interest scale
It has high validity and reliability

their skills, aptitudes or

It was first developed by E.K. Strong and David Campbell: Decided similar

interests bring people together in work settings

Holland later expanded on that theory.

SII-Form T317: General Description

It consists of 317 items grouped into 8 parts:
In the first 5 parts: the respondent records her or his preference by marking L, I, or D to
indicate Like , Indifferent, or Dislike respectively. Items in these five parts fall into the
categories of : school subjects, activities, leisure activities, and day to day contact with various
types of people.

In the 6th and 7th part: it requires the respondent to express preferences between paired
activities and between all the possible pairings of 4 items from the world of work.

In the 8th part: respondent mark a set of self descriptive statements Yes, No, or ?.

SCORING

6 General Occupational Theme (GOT) scores: An overall view of your interest

patterns

25 Basic Interest Scales : Specific interest areas based upon your GOT

211 Occupational Scales: Specific interest patterns to people working in certain

occupations that share your likes and dislikes

4 Personal Style Scales: Your preferences on 5 different scales

These can only be scored on a computer.

General Occupational theme: Hollands Model

People can be described as a combination of two or more of six types: Realistic,

Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional.

Job environments can also be described as a combination of the same six types.

People of a given type seek job environments of the same or similar type.

If a person can find such a compatible job environment, he/she is likely to be satisfied
and productive.

INVESTIGATIVE:
Analyzing
problems or
working in labs

THE HEXAGON
OF GENERAL
OCCUPATIONAL
THEMES

ARTISTIC:
Being creative
or developing
new things

REALISTIC:
building things or
working with
hands.

CONVENTIONAL:
Organizing things
or doing
administrative
works

SOCIAL:
Helping or caring
for others
ENTERPRISING:
Managing things
or working in
business

RIASEC Model

In the hexagon, the first letters of each of the themes are used to denote the
corners and the order in which the themes fall around form the acronym
RIASEC.

The highest correlations were obtained between theme scales occupying adjacent
positions along the perimeter of the hexagon.

The lowest correlations were found between the scales at opposite end of the
diagonals.

Basic Interest Scales

Each General Occupational Theme is narrowed down further into more specific
areas.

These scales consist of clusters of substantially inter-correlated items and therefore

help in understanding why an individual scores high on a particular Occupational
Scale.

These are of 25 scales.

Realistic

Artistic

Investigative Social

Enterprising

Conventional

Computer
Hardware &
Electronics

Visual Arts &

Design

Mathematics

Religion &
Spirituality

Entrepreneurship

Finance &
Investing

Mechanics &
Construction

Performing Arts

Science

Human
Resources &
Training

Law

Programming &
Information
Systems

Military

Writing & mass

communications

Research

Social Sciences

Sales

Taxes &
Accounting

Nature &
Agriculture

Culinary Arts

Medical
Science

Teaching &
Education

Management

Office
Management

Athletics

Healthcare
Services

Marketing &
Advertising

Protective
Services

Counseling &
Helping

Politics & Public

Speaking

Occupational Scales

These do not measure your interest level in the occupation itself, but measures
how similar or dissimilar you are to the people working in the occupations.

There are 211 Occupational Scales. 102 scales have been normed for each sex
and 7 scales for both female and male.

Personal Style Scales

It states your preference on five different scales:
Work Style
Learning Environment
Leadership Style
Risk Taking
Team Orientation

Interpretation of Scores

All scores with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10 are reported as

standard scores.

The SII Applications and Technical guide contains much information to

aid the counselor in interpreting results and discussing their possible
implications with the client

Psychometric Evaluation

The concurrent validation data are provided by the degree of differentiation

among various occupational samples, and between occupational samples and
the reference samples.

The structure and the organization of the SII have allowed it to be modified
and expanded in a number of ways through its continuing revisions.

Thus making it the most widely used among all other interests inventories.

Interest Inventories : Overview &

Some Highlights

Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS)

Strong focuses on specific occupations, both in item selection and normative

interpretations; Jackson uses broad interest areas in item development and
scoring system.

Strong scale represents Criterion Keying and Criterion Validation; Jackson

exemplifies Construct Validation at every stage.

In Strong, items are independently marked Liked, Indifferent or Dislike; In

Jackson all items are of forced choice type.

Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS)

First step in development of JVIS was to Define Constructs or dimensions to be

measured.

On the bases of published research on psychology of work and of factor analytic

and rational classification of vocational interest item, these were of two types :

Work Roles: Pertaining to what a person does in the job.

Work Styles: Not related to job-related activities but preferences for working environment
or situations, where a certain kind of behavior is expected.

JVIS Inventory Development

It started with over 3,000 items, originally presented for like - dislike response, then
factor analyses of subsets of items were prepared for each scale.

Response bias was removed statistically before proceeding further.

Items were selected if they showed high correlations with total factor scores on their
own scale and low correlation with other scales.

Pair of items that represented different work roles or work styles and showed similar
endorsement frequencies when represented singly were assembled for forced choice
format.

JVIS Inventory Development

The Final Form of JVIS contains 34 basic interest scales, covering 26 work
roles and 8 work styles.

Inventory was equally applicable to both the sexes, although separate norms
for females and male subgroups are also available.

Norms were derived from large sample of college and high school students in
US and Canada.

Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS)

JVIS can be hand scored quickly and conveniently.

However, Computer based scoring options utilize more recent norms and
provide additional score analyses either in short report or in narrative report.

Some reviewers have suggested that the wordings of JVIS items may be too
sophisticated for many high school students.

The Kuder Occupational Interest Survey & Its Predecessors

Developed by Frederic Kuder, have been in use almost as long as Strong Series.

The Earliest was Kuder Preference Record Vocational :

Used forced choice triad items, in which respondents indicated which they would like most and
which least.
Scores were obtained not for specific occupation, but for 10 broad interest areas Outdoor,
Mechanical, Computational, Scientific, Persuasive, Artistic, Literary, Musical, Social Serve and
Clerical.

Items were formulated and grouped on basis of Content Validity.

Final item selection was based on internal consistency and low correlation with other
scales.

The Kuder Occupational Interest Survey & Its Predecessors

Kuder General Interest Survey(KGIS) was developed later as revision and

downward extension of Kuder Preference Record Vocational. It was designed
for Grades 6 to 12.

Kuder Occupational Interest Survey(KOIS) is a later version, which provides

scores with reference to specific occupational groups as Strong.

However, KOIS does not employ a general reference group. Instead, each
occupational scale is expressed as correlation between their interest pattern and
interest pattern of occupational group.

The Kuder Occupational Interest Survey & Its Predecessors

Scores are currently available for 109 specific occupational groups and 40 college
majors.

Some scales were developed only on men, some only on women and some on both.

The occupations ranged form Beauticians and Truck Drivers to Chemist and Lawyers.

KOIS now provides both occupational scores and 10 broad, homogenous basic
interest scores, labeled Vocational Interest Estimates(VIE).

VIE are percentile scores derived from short scales equivalent to 10 interest area
scores of early Kuder Preference Record.

The Kuder Occupational Interest Survey & Its Predecessors

Reviewers have generally praised the technical characteristics of KOIS while

pointing to the dearth of predictive validity on this instrument.

The failure to address the effects of its forced choice format on scores has also
been criticized.

Career Assessment Inventory The Vocational Version(CAI-VV)

First Released in 1975, CAI is patterned closely on the strong Inventory.

Designed specifically for persons seeking a career that does not require a fouryear college degree or advanced professional training.

It concentrates on skilled trades, technical work and service occupations like

aircraft mechanic, cafeteria worker, registered nurses etc.

Written at sixth grade reading level

Career Assessment Inventory The Vocational Version(CAI-VV)

305 Inventory Items grouped under 3 content categories:

Activities
School Subjects
Occupations

Response options from like very much to dislike very much.

Provides scores on 3 major type of scales :

6 Holland General Themes

22 Homogeneous Basic Interest Area Scales
91 Occupational Scales

Self Directed Search (SDS)

This instrument was developed by Holland.

SDS was designed as a self - administered, self scored, and self interpreted
vocational counseling instrument.

Individual fills out the Self Assessment Booklet, scores the responses and calculate
six summary scores corresponding to the themes of the responses (Realistic,
Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional).

3 highest summary scores are used to find a 3-letter code which is seen in the
Occupation Finder booklet to locate among 1,335 occupations.

Users can also explore all occupations in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.

Self Directed Search (SDS)

In addition to the regular form of inventory (Form R), three other versions of
instrument are available :

Form E : for limited reading skills.

Form CP : adults in midst of career transition.
Career Explorer version : middle school and junior high school students.

Reliability of SDS is generally satisfactory for summary scores.

Construct Validation of the basic six themes relies principally on research.

Concurrent Validity and predictive efficiency fluctuate depending on samples.

Self Directed Search (SDS)

According to Holland, individuals seek environments that are congruent with

their personality types; and such congruence enhances work satisfaction, job
stability and achievement.

Each of Hollands occupational theme corresponds to a type or cluster of

personality attributes.

Reviewers opinion is that this instrument provides a simple, inexpensive and

relatively accurate way to explore vocations.

Opinion Surveys and Attitude Scales

An attitude is a tendency to react favorably or unfavorably toward a designated

class of stimuli such as a national/ethnic group, custom or institution.

Attitudes must be inferred from overt behavior and has been most frequently
associated with social stimuli and emotionally toned responses.

Opinion and attitude are mostly used interchangeably but opinion surveys are
distinguished from attitude scales

Opinion Surveys and Attitude Scales

Opinion Surveys: Concerned with replies to specific questions that need not
be related and the answers are kept separate rather than a combined total
score.

Attitude scales yield a total score indicating the direction and intensity of an
individuals attitude toward a stimulus category.

Types of Attitude Scales

Thurstone scale:
The development of this scale begins with assembling many statements expressing a
wide range of attitudes towards a particular object under consideration.
A large number of judges are asked to individually sort the statements into piles for
degree of favorableness.
Median position assigned is the scale for the statement
Variability of the judgments is the index of ambiguity.
Items are chosen that exhibit minimum variability and a wide spread scale values
across a 11 point range.

Types of Attitude Scales

Guttman-type Scale:
To determine if a set of statements is unidimensional.
A perfect scale exists if respondents who agrees with one statement also agree
with milder statements of that attitude.

The attitude scale items can be ordered along a continuum of intensity or

difficulty of acceptance.

Thus, a persons position on the scale would be determined by their responses.

Types of Attitude Scales

Likert Scale:
Easier to construct with satisfactory reliability.
Begins with statements that expresses an attitude which are clearly favorable or
clearly unfavorable.

Likert scales calls for a graded response to each statement expressed generally in
one of five categories.

To score the scale response options are credited points.

Locus of Control

This construct came to be known after being published in a monograph by

Rotter.

He presented a scale to assess individuals generalized expectancies for internal

versus external control of reinforcement.

The effect of reinforcement is to establish whether or not the person perceives a

casual relationship between his own behavior and the reward

The I-E scale is a forced choice, self-report inventory

Thank You.