Chapter 6: Attitudes, Values, and Interests Flashcards
Define attitudes
Attitudes will reveal behavior”
“Attitude may be said to connote response consistency with regard to certain categories of stimuli” (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997, p. 405)
May be thought of as separate from opinion
Classic Tripartite Model
- Emotion component (how strongly one feels)
- Behavior component
- Cognitive component (thinking)
Domino and Domino (2006) list precautions
- Attitudes are inferred from a person’s words and actions; thus, they are not measured directly.
- Attitudes are complex; feelings, beliefs, and behaviors do not always match.
- Attitudes may not necessarily be stable, and so the establishment of reliability, especially when viewed as consistency over time, can be problematic.
- Often we study attitudes without necessarily having uniform agreement as to their nature.
Ways to study attitudes
- Ask directly
- Observe directly
- Assess directly
- Sociometric procedures
- Records
Rating scale advantages
- Administered to large groups at once
- Anonymity
- Own pace
- Uniformity of procedure
- Greater flexibility
- Easy to analyze
Equal Appearing Intervals (Thurstone Method)
Process:
1. Select target
2. Generate pool of items
3. Experts sort items
4. Calculate median or mean value of item
5. Calculate variability (IQR)
6. Retain items
7. Administer items
Summated Ratings (Likert Method)
Process:
1. Select target
2. Generate pool of items
3. Items administered to sample
4. Total score for each subject calculated
5. Internal consistency calculated for items
6. Retain items
7. Administer items
Bogardus Method
– measure responses on a continuum of social distance
- I would be willing to accept (group member) as a close relative by marriage
- I would be willing to accept (group member) as a close personal friend
- I would be willing to accept (group member) as a neighbor living on the same street
- I would be willing to accept (group member) as a coworker in the same office
- I would be willing to accept (group member) as a citizen in this country
- I would be willing to accept (group member) as a visitor in this country
Guttman Scaling
Determine whether a set of statements is unidimensional
Statements are ordered along a continuum of intensity or difficulty of acceptance
If a person agrees to a certain statement, then they will agree to a milder statement
If we know the most extreme statement an individual will accept, we should understand how they will respond to the other items
Semantic Differential (SemD)
Two levels of meaning to words
* Denotative – dictionary meanings
* Connotative – personal meaning
Develop a series of bipolar adjectives
Respondents rate a concept using a scale (e.g., 5-point, 7-point)
Half the items should be reverse scored
Process:
1. Choose the concept(s)
2. Select the adjectives
Checklists
- Respondents may be careless in responding
- Doesn’t allow for degree of preference
The C Scale
Liberalism - Conservatism
Self-anchoring scales
Ask the respondents to describe their top and bottom anchoring points
What are vocational interests?
A person’s preferences for behaviors, situations, contexts in which activities occur, and/or the outcomes associated with the preferred activities
What do interest test not reflect?
a pesons abilities
What do interest tests not predict?
do NOT predict success
does predict satisfaction
Measures of Interest: The RIASEC Model
An individual’s interests may be sufficiently solidified by age 15 that they can be useful in
career planning.
RIASEC model has been the consensus model of vocational interests for many decades.
Nobody finds everything equally interesting.
Although diverse specific interests cluster in predictable patterns
What is an interest measure?
An instrument designed to evaluate test-takers’ likes, dislikes, leisure activities, curiosities, and involvements in various pursuits for comparison with groups of various occupations and professions.
Explain Holland’s RIASEC theory in terms of R
Realistic
- “Do-ers”
- People who have athletic or mechanical abilities, prefer to work with objects, machines, tools, etc. and prefer to be outdoors
- Example jobs:
Mechanics
Carpenters
Electricians
Explain Holland’s RIASEC theory in terms of I
Investigative
- “Thinkers”
- People who like to observe,
investigate, evaluate and solve
problems - Example jobs:
Physicians
Computer programmers
Psychologists
Professors
Explain Holland’s RIASEC theory in terms of A
Artistic
- “Creators”
- People who have artistic, innovating
or intuitional abilities. Like to work in
unstructured settings using
imagination and creativity. - Example jobs:
Journalists
Dancers
Attorneys
Explain Holland’s RIASEC theory in terms of S
Social
- “Helpers”
- People who like to work with people to
enlighten, help, train, or cure them.
Skilled with words. - Example jobs:
Counselors
Social workers
Nurses
Explain Holland’s RIASEC theory in terms of E
Enterprising
- “Persuaders”
- People who like to work with people
influencing, persuading, performing,
leading, or managing - Example Jobs:
Politicians
Travel Agents
Stockbrokers
Explain Holland’s RIASEC theory in terms of C
Conventional
- “Organizers”
- People who like to work with data,
have clerical or numerical ability,
carry out tasks in detail or follow-
through on others’ instructions - Example Jobs:
Accountants
Computer operators
Insurance Adjusters
Relationships between the Big Five and the Holland themes
Enterprising correlates with Neuroticism and Conscientious
Social correlates with Openness
Conventional correlates with concsientiousness
Holland Self-Direct Search (SDS)
- Holland developed his own interest inventory
- Notice the six themes are arranged in a very unique
manner on the hexagon…
Adjacent themes are similar
Opposite themes are dissimilar - Also important to note, the SDS is…
Self-administered
Self-scored
Self-interpreted
Holland Code
- Results of the SDS assign test takers a three-
character code
Example: RES - Which means…most resemble a Realistic type, less
Enterprising, and even less Social - Those types not included in a person’s code at all
mean that person resembles these types least of all - It sounds as if the O*NET inventory may use this idea
in determining some of its information.
Four popular interest tests
- Strong Interest Inventory (SII)
- Kuder Scales
- Career Assessment Inventory (CAI)
- Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS)
Strong Interest Inventory (SII)
- Edward Strong – 1928 – one of the oldest psychological tests still in use today!
Trying to place military people in suitable jobs during WWI
Asked individuals seeking employment what they liked/disliked about: - Various occupations
- Areas of study
- Personality types
- Leisure activities
SII Development & Construction
- Various forms of the test, including women-only forms, and a number of revisions, before the final version in 1994
Assisted and taken over by David Campbell - Strong’s methodology:
Compare the interests of a specific occupational group with those of a general, nonspecific reference group to
determine what is unique to the occupational group
SII: Gender Bias
- Prior to 1970’s – men and women employed in same job, but differed in interests
- “Separate but equal”, but the inventories were rarely equal
- More occupational groups on the male form
- Still faced with issue today
- Solutions
Separate norm groups for each occupation by gender
Provide both male and female statistics separately on scales
Kuder Scales
- KOIS = older scale (Kuder Occupational Interest
Survey) - Now, career planning systems
- Focus today: Kuder Career Planning System
Kuder Career Planning System
Helps with exploring career interests, exploring occupations, and job titles
Used the average responses of each criterion group to select items or the survey (clustering of related items).
Wanted to find those items endorsed by a criterion group
Kuder Inventories
Believed the best way to assess interests was by using a forced-choice, ipsative item format.
For example,
180 activities
“triads”
Career Assessment Inventory (CAI)
- 6th grade reading level
- Holland’s theoretical base (RIASEC)
- Original purpose = people considering careers not requiring college degree (which was SII’s focus)
- Provides assessment of 111 specific careers
- Takes about 40 minutes to complete
- 370 items
- 5-point scale
Career Assessment Inventory (CAI) 3 main scales
General Occupational Theme (GOT) Scales
Basic Interest Scales (BIS)
Occupational Scales (OS)
Career Assessment Inventory (CAI) purposes
Indicate general interests in terms of RIASEC
Indicate areas of specific interest
Similar to SII, indicates occupations to consider
- Useful for those considering
occupations NOT requiring a four-
year college degree - Typically used in educational planning
at:
Junior-college
Vocational-technical schools
High schools
Jackson Vocational Interest Survey (JVIS)
- Matches people to academic or career fields based on interests
- A main purpose – equal measurement of men & women
- Used a rational approach to item development (based on theory)
- Different from the other inventories which used a empirical approach
