Description of alternative measures of the concepts of vocational interest: Crystallization,congruence, and coherence

Several concepts which are related to score profiles common in career counseling are discussed. In the first part, problems associated with the definition and the measurement of concepts related to a single profile are examined: J. L. Holland's (1973, Making vocational choices, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall) concept of consistency is compared to the proposed notion of crystallization of interests which is based on the similarity among the salient scales of the profile. In the second part, problems associated with the definition and the measurement of concepts related to the similarity between two (or more) profiles are examined and the disadvantages of existing measures are discussed. An alternative measure, based on the similarity between the profiles, is proposed as a measure of congruence (between different types of profiles) and of coherence (which refers to the similarity between the same type of profiles). The proposed measures are based on the salient scales of the profile(s) and take into account the structure of interests and the structure of occupations. The rationale and characteristics of the measures are described, and their usefulness is demonstrated. Finally, the implications for vocational theory and research are discussed.