Predicting vocational performance of engineers from selected vocational interest,personality, and scholastic aptitude variables

The study examines the validity of the ACE and selected subscales of the EPPS and SVIB in predicting the vocational performance of engineers. Multidimensional criteria of vocational performance assessed from both external and internal frames of reference were employed. Six predictors were related to 17 vocational performance criteria; of the 102 tests that were made, 7 were found to be statistically significant. The results indicate that, in general, vocational performance cannot be accurately predicted by vocational interest, personality, and scholastic aptitude variables. The only consistent finding was that subjective ratings of vocational performance were predicted by SVIB Group V scores; a “self-esteem” interpretation was posited. Implications of the results for counselors and employers were discussed.     

Factors within the 1969 SVIB for women and relationships to Holland's theory

The Basic Interest Scales (BIS) and the Occupational Scales (O-S) of the revised Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Women (TW 398) were assigned Holland codes, and component scores for the BIS and O-S were separately developed, intercorrelated, and evaluated along with standardized composite scores representing each of the 11 O-S Groups on the profile. The dimensionality of the BIS and O-S was similar, and similar in number to Holland's theory, but the components were only partially congruent. Some profile Groups provided relatively good representations of BIS and/or Occupational scale components, and the grouping of the O-S provided important information not otherwise readily available. Holland's dimensions are not uniformly represented in either the BIS or O-S, and despite some similarities, fundamental problems of compatibility appeared to exist in relating the structure of this instrument to Holland's formulations. Women's interests are in need of independent study.     

Children judge "perspective" transformations of letterlike forms as different from prototypes

Children from 5 to 11 years old made same-different judgments of prototypes of letterlike forms paired with transforms of these prototypes generated on a dimension either critical or noncritical for object identification. For compression transformations (noncritical: as in perspective shift), frequency of correct “different” judgments increased as the degree of compression in the transform increased. This result challenges the view that dimensions irrelevant in object identification are ignored or not detected in graphic discrimination.     

Cardiac orienting responses of 6- and 16-week-old infants

Since previous data suggested that the magnitude of orienting evidenced by cardiac deceleration increased over the first 16 weeks of life, 6- and 16-week-old infants were compared on various characteristics of orienting: habituation, dishabituation, and magnitude of deceleration to stimulus offset as well as to stimulus onset. Neither the change in stimulus following habituation trials nor the stimulus offset produced a large enough response to confidently evaluate age differences suggested by the data. Stimulus onset elicited a pronounced deceleration which for the two age groups was of equivalent magnitude on initial trials and declined similarly with stimulus repetition. It was suggested that similarity of the two age groups on these parameters was due to control of state within a narrow alert range, and that, in general, younger infants are less likely than older infants to show orienting when conditions for orienting are marginal.