Showing Clients What Their Profiles Mean

This article suggests that counselors might profitably investigate new graphic approaches to showing clients what their multivariate profiles mean. An illustration is given in terms of Holland's RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional; 1985) model of vocational interests.     

The Influence of Holland's Vocational Interests on Work-Family Conflict: An Exploratory Analysis

Drawing on a sample of 438 working professionals from various organizations across the central United States, the authors investigated the relationship between Holland's (1959, 1997) RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional) model and employee perceptions of work-family conflict. Results revealed that the RIASEC model contributed unique variance in predicting work-family conflict beyond demographic characteristics and the Big Five personality constructs. The RIASEC interests were found to be associated with different dimensions of work-family conflict. These results signal that vocational interests may influence not only work-related attitudes and behaviors (e.g., job satisfaction, performance), but also one's ability to balance work and family demands.     

Personality types and traits in the Vocational Preference Inventory

The relationships between the six scales on which Holland's (1973) theory is based (viz., Realistic, Investigative, Social, Conventional, Enterprising, Artistic) and the five other scales (viz., Self-control, Masculinity, Status, Infrequency, Acquiescence) of the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) (Holland, 1970) were investigated using canonical analysis. Considering the six personality type scales as one set of variables and the five trait scales of the VPI as the second set of variables, five significant canonical correlations were obtained for a sample of 373 mostly white undergraduate students. In a second study, three significant canonical correlations were found for a sample of 115 black college students at another school. The weights of the VPI scales suggested that three patterns of relationships among the scales are shared by the black sample and the mostly white sample.     

Measuring the Agreement of Several Three‐Letter Holland Codes for One Person

A method is proposed for measuring the agreement of several 3‐letter Holland (J. L. Holland, 1992) codes that have been obtained on one individual using different methods. The basis of the method is the scores 4, 2, 1,0 for Holland themes (R = Realistic, I = Investigative, A = Artistic, S = Social, E = Enterprising, C = Conventional) listed first, listed second, listed third, and omitted from the 3‐letter code.     

Theoretical and methodological issues with testing the SCCT and RIASEC models: Comment on Lent, Sheu, and Brown (2010) and Lubinski (2010)

The current article replies to comments made by Lent, Sheu, and Brown (2010) and Lubinski (2010) regarding the study "Interpreting the Interest-Efficacy Association From a RIASEC Perspective" (Armstrong & Vogel, 2009). The comments made by Lent et al. and Lubinski highlight a number of important theoretical and methodological issues, including the process of defining and differentiating between constructs, the assumptions underlying Holland's (1959, 1997) RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional types) model and interrelations among constructs specified in social cognitive career theory (SCCT), the importance of incremental validity for evaluating constructs, and methodological considerations when quantifying interest-efficacy correlations and for comparing models using multivariate statistical methods. On the basis of these comments and previous research on the SCCT and Holland models, we highlight the importance of considering multiple theoretical perspectives in vocational research and practice. Alternative structural models are outlined for examining the role of interests, self-efficacy, learning experiences, outcome expectations, personality, and cognitive abilities in the career choice and development process.     

Vocational Personality Types in College Engineering Students in Relation to Academic Achievement

This study explored whether and to what extent vocational personality types based on Holland (1994) correlate with and explain unique variance of academic success among 117 undergraduate civil engineering students by using the Self-Directed Search–Form R, 4th Edition. Findings indicated that the majority of participants’ 1st-letter code was Realistic (39.3%), 2nd-letter code was Investigative (24.8%), and 3rd-letter code was Social (21.4%), compared with Holland's 3-letter codes for civil engineering (Investigative, Realistic, Enterprising). The study also calculated the degree of congruence between personality type and occupational environment. For career counselors, the findings underscore the importance of using congruence scores to predict engineering students’ academic performance.     

Assessing vocational interests in the Basque Country using paired comparison design

This article proposes the Thurstonian paired comparison model to assess vocational preferences and uses this approach to evaluate the Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprise, and Conventional (RIASEC) model in the Basque Country (Spain). First, one unrestricted model is estimated in the Structural Equation Modelling framework using one paired comparison design. Secondly, the RIASEC circumplex structure is evaluated upon the estimated latent preferences correlation matrix. The results show good fit between the Thurstonian model and the data, but do not confirm the RIASEC structure in the Basque population.     

The Contribution of Self‐Efficacy in Assessing Interests Using the Self‐Directed Search

Using the variables self‐efficacy, self‐estimates, and self‐competencies in a hierarchical multiple regression and confirmatory factor analysis, the present study provided strong support for 3 of 6 RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) interest domains regarding Holland's (1997) assertion that it is unnecessary to administer a separate measure of self‐efficacy when using the Self‐Directed Search (SDS; Holland, Powell, & Fritzsche, 1994) to measure interests in career counseling. Implications for the interpretation of SDS scores in light of self‐efficacy assessment are discussed.     

The self-efficacy-interest relationship and RIASEC type: Which is figure and which is ground? Comment on Armstrong and Vogel (2009)

Armstrong and Vogel (2009) proposed that the differences between self-efficacy and interests are a matter of measurement artifact rather than substance. In tests of this hypothesis, they conceived of self-efficacy and interest as observed indicators of larger RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) types and as response method factors. We revisit the authors' theoretical assumptions, measurement procedures, analyses, and interpretation of findings. When viewing this study in the context of the larger literature, we find ample support for the construal of self-efficacy and interests as distinct but related constructs. In addition, we examine the authors' reanalysis of earlier longitudinal findings, reaching different conclusions than they did about the nature of the temporal relations among the social cognitive variables. Ultimately, whether one wishes to highlight or minimize the differences between interest and self-efficacy may largely depend on whether one's purpose is explanation (e.g., how do people make career-relevant choices?) or classification (e.g., which RIASEC type does a person most resemble?).     

Inventories based on Roe and Holland yield similar results

Holland (1973) classified all occupations into six occupational fields: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. Roe (1956) classified occupations into Service, Business, Organization, Technology, Outdoor, Science, General Cultural, and Arts and Entertainment fields. Two hundred seventeen Israeli ninth-grade students answered two interest inventories, one based on Holland's classification and one on Roe's classification. By means of a Smallest Space Analysis (SSA-I), a two-dimensional configuration was found. In this configuration the hypothesized parallel fields appear adjacent to one another and the general shape resembles the structure found earlier for each classification system separately. The findings indicate the possibility of incorporating results based on either classification. Some practical applications of the findings are discussed.     

Vocational Preference Inventory High Point Codes and Educational Preferences

This study reports normative data describing the combinations of various VPI high point codes associated with educational preferences classified into one of six of Holland's occupational environments and an undecided category. Eight hundred thirty-one male and 129 female college freshmen were queried regarding their educational preferences and were administered the VPI directly prior to college enrollment. The comparisons between preferences and VPI combinations revealed that Intellectual and Realistic, Social and Enterprising, Conventional and Enterprising, and Social and Artistic, seem to go together frequently for male students. The female sample revealed that Social and Artistic VPI codes were common.     

Measuring women's interests using Holland's vocational classification

A Hebrew interest inventory for females in Israel, based on Holland's 1966 1973 vocational classification, was examined on 322 female pupils and 167 working females. Results showed that: (a) with the exception of the Conventional and Enterprising fields, subjects occupied in a field had their highest interest score in that field; (b) for all six interest fields, the highest interest score was the score of those who were engaged in that field; (c) in a smallest space analysis, the activities, competencies, and occupation sections of the interest inventory formed the Investigative, Realistic, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional circular arrangement; (d) a correlation of .38 between interest score and job satisfaction was found.     

Personality and interests as predictors of educational streaming and achievement

In this study Holland's RIASEC Model of vocational personalities and the Five-Factor Model of personality are used (i) to assess individual differences among study majors and (ii) to predict educational achievement. A sample of 934 last-year students who enrolled in different academic majors filled out Dutch/Flemish adaptations of the NEO-PI-R (Costa and McCrae, 1992) and the Self-Directed Search (Holland, 1977; 1979). The results show that both models are useful to describe differences among different majors. Conscientiousness proves to be a general predictor of grades and study career. For the other Big Five dimensions, except for Agreeableness, major and/or gender specific relationships with educational outcomes are observed. Holland's interest dimensions are not related to educational achievement, except for some moderate gender or major specific correlations with the Investigative and the Artistic scales. Suggestions for future research regarding educational streaming and counselling are discussed.     

Testing the choice model of social cognitive career theory across Holland themes: A meta-analytic path analysis

Social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) seeks to explain the factors that shape educational and vocational interests and choices. We used meta-analytic path analyses to synthesize data (from 1981 to 2008) relevant to SCCT’s interest and choice hypotheses, organizing the literature according to Holland’s (1997) broad occupational themes. Sufficient data were available to test (a) a 6-variable version of the interest/choice model in the Realistic, Investigative, and Enterprising themes, and (b) a 4-variable version of the model in the Artistic, Social, and Conventional themes. Analyses of both model versions were generally consistent with theoretical expectations. However, tests of the 6-variable model indicated better support for representing the pathways from contextual variables to choice goals as being partially mediated by self-efficacy and outcome expectations rather than as producing only direct linkages to goals. We consider implications of the findings for theory, research, and SCCT-based interventions.     

Social cognitive influences on Mexican Americans’ career choices across Holland’s themes

This study examined several propositions of social cognitive career theory ( [Lent et al., 1994] and [Lent et al., 2000]) with a sample of 393 Mexican American college students. It was hypothesized that person input (i.e., age) and background contextual variables (i.e., Anglo orientation, Mexican orientation, familism, instrumentality, and expressivity) would predict career self-efficacy across Holland’s (1997) six RIASEC types. In addition, we examined the proposed relations between career self-efficacy, career interests, and career choice goal across the six RIASEC areas. Our results indicated that (a) Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional career models were similar across gender and university affiliation groups, (b) gender differences were found in the Realistic career model, (c) institutional affiliation differences were found in the Investigative career model, and (d) the models were a good fit to the data. Implications for future vocational research and career interventions are discussed.     

我国中学生职业兴趣的特点与测验编制

随着当前就业压力的增加,社会竞争也愈演愈烈,职业生涯规划的问题逐渐受到人们的重视。本文基于当代高中毕业生选报大学专业时对自身兴趣特点深入了解的需要,在国内外职业兴趣研究的基础上,探讨了我国高中生职业兴趣的特点,并编制出一套适合当前中国高中生兴趣特点的职业兴趣测验。该测验将职业兴趣分为七种类型：艺术型、事务型、经营型、研究型、自然型、社会型和技术型。测验的信、效度测量指标均达到比较满意的水平。经过初步推广使用,获得了广大使用者的好评。     

Influence of adolescent social crowds on the development of vocational identity

A major gap in Holland's theory of vocational identity has been specification of the developmental antecedents of the six personality types. The present paper extends Geoffrey Kelso's work on the developmental antecedents of Holland's types by examining the relationship between membership in adolescent social crowds and vocational identity in early adulthood. In four samples (total N = 274), membership in five junior high school crowds—Motorheads, Brains, Freaks, Politicos, and Conformists—was found to be associated with higher scores on the Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Enterprising, and Conventional scales, respectively, of Holland's Self-Directed Search and Vocational Preference Inventory in early adulthood. The relative impact of temperament, family, and peer variables on the development of vocational identity is discussed.     

Emotional Creativity and Real-Life Involvement in Different Types of Creative Leisure Activities

The role of emotional creativity in practicing creative leisure activities and in the preference of college majors remains unknown. This study aims to explore how emotional creativity measured by the Emotional Creativity Inventory (ECI; Averill, 1999) is interrelated with the real-life involvement in different types of specific creative leisure activities and with four categories of college majors. Data were collected from 251 university students, university graduates, and young adults (156 women and 95 men). Art students and graduates scored significantly higher on the ECI than other majors. Humanities scored significantly higher than technical/economic majors. Five creative leisure activities were significantly correlated with the ECI, specifically, writing, painting, composing music, performing drama, and do-it-yourself home improvement.     

VOCATIONAL INTERESTS, PERSONALITY AND EFFECTIVE POLICE PERFORMANCE

Scores on vocational interest inventories are commonly thought to be unrelated to job performance. A close examination of the literature suggests, however, that vocational scales other than those describing the occupational group in question may often predict job performance. A case in point is reported here, using Holland's Self Directed Search and two groups of policemen. Scores on the Artistic and Conventional scales consistently predict effective performance as a patrolman in this Realistic and Social occupation.