Testing in Counseling Psychology Flashcards
The Strong Vocational Interest Blank
Shortly after World War I, E. K. Strong, Jr. and some of his colleagues began to examine the activities that members of different professions liked and disliked
people in different professional groups had different patterns of interests.
people in the same line of work had similar hobbies, liked the same types of entertainment, and read the same sorts of books and magazines
Strong set out to develop a test that would match the interests of a subject to the interests and values of a criterion group of people who were happy in the careers they had chosen
criterion keying, or the criterion-group approach
develop a test that would match the interests of a subject to the interests and values of a criterion group of people who were happy in the careers they had chosen
preliminary studies of the test - The Strong Vocational Interest Blank
groups of individuals from many professions
and occupations responded to approximately 400 items dealing with likes and dislikes related to these occupations and to leisure activities.
criterion keying then determined how the interests of new subjects resembled those of the criterion groups.
revised 1966 version of the SVIB
399 items were related to 54 occupations for men.
A separate form presented 32 different occupations for women
Items in the SVIB were weighted according to how frequently an interest occurred in a particular occupational group as opposed to how frequently it occurred in the general population.
Raw scores were converted to standard scores, with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10
criterion group used in the construction of
the SVIB contained approximately
300 people, a good normative sample
SVIB - reliability
Numerous reliability studies produced impressive results, with odd–even and short-term test–retest figures generally running between the low .80’s and the low .90’s.
Long-term (20-year) test–retest coefficients ran in the respectable .60’s.
Validity data indicates that the SVIB predicted job satisfaction well (e.g., Strong & Campbell, 1966).
In addition, studies have shown that achieving one’s career aspirations contributes to job satisfaction (Iliescu, Ispas, Sulea, & Ilie, 2015)
One of the most interesting findings to emerge from the hundreds of published studies using the SVIB is that patterns of interest remain…
relatively stable over time.
Strong made a practice of asking a group of Stanford University students who took the test in the 1930s to take the test again as they grew older.
interests remain relatively stable for as long as 22 years
- most people did modify their interests slightly over this period, and a few people made complete turnabouts; nevertheless, the great majority remained consistent
Criticisms of the SVIB
Critics cited a gender bias in the scales because different tests were used for men and women.
Others complained about the lack of theory associated with the test.
The Evolution of the Strong Measures - Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory
Campbell published a new version of the SVIB, which he called the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII).
SCII was Campbell’s (1974) response to the shortcomings of the SVIB.
.
What did campbell change?
Items from both the men’s and women’s forms of the SVIB were merged into a single form that included scales devoid of gender bias
introduced more theory into the measurement strategy- Hollands theory of vocational choice
J. L. Holland’s (1975) theory of vocational choice inspired who?
What was it
Campbell
Holland had postulated that interests express personality and that people can be classified into one or more of six categories according to their interests
Over the years, research has generally supported Holland’s ideas. For example, one detailed study that used all 437 occupational titles from the Bureau of the Census demonstrated that Holland’s system can better describe work activities, general training requirements, and occupational rewards than can a variety of competing vocational classification systems
Over the course of last 60 years, research has consistently supported the claim that occupational interests reflect personality
The Campbell Interest and Skill Survey
David Campbell began working on the Strong Vocational Interest Blank in 1960
When Strong died in 1963, Campbell, then an assistant professor at the University of
Minnesota, became the primary representative of the SVIB.
Later versions were published under the authorship of Strong and Campbell
The first version of the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory was published in
1974.
Ownership Dispute
Campbell began working on the Strong Vocational Interest Blank in 1960 when
he was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota
Because Strong had been a professor at Stanford University, Stanford and the University of Minnesota became engaged in a legal dispute over ownership. In an out-of-court settlement in 1988, Stanford received the rights to publish the Strong Interest Inventory while
Campbell received the rights to most of the cumulative work.
Campbell published the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS) when
1992
CISS asks respondents to assess …?
What is in the scales?
their degree of interest in 200 academic
and occupational topics.
Furthermore, it assesses the degree of skill in 120 specific occupations. The system produces an 11-page profile and a 2-page report summary
The CISS ultimately yields a variety of different types of scales.-. For each of these scales, an interest level and a skill score are offered.
What other scales does the CISS offer besides the specific scales?
CISS offers an academic focus scale
that helps test takers understand how comfortable or successful they may be in an academic setting, and an extroversion scale that helps guide them to occupations with
the appropriate amount and intensity of interpersonal relations
Recently, Campbell teamed up with US News & World Report to offer the CISS online
For $19.25 plus tax, you can gain access to the 320-question survey.
The fee includes a personalized report that compares your results to the responses of
people who are successfully employed in 60 occupations, along with a comprehensive
career planner and a guide to help you interpret the results.
CISS is a continuation of the research on the
SVIB and the SCII.
CISS today
CISS is now shorter and more efficient than the older SCII. The scales are standardized with means of 50 and standard deviations of 10. As with the earlier versions, the CISS uses the theoretical structure of John Holland. The
manual provides extensive evidence for validity and reliability (Campbell, 1995).
New evidence continues to support the validity of the CISS and its subscales
Summary of the Components of the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey
Orientation scales
Seven scales describe the test taker’s occupational orientation: influencing,
organizing, helping, creating, analyzing, producing, and adventuring.
Basic scales
The basic scales provide an overview for categories of occupations. Examples of
basic scales include law/politics, counseling, and mathematics.
Occupational scales
Sixty occupational scales describe matches with particular occupations, including
attorney, engineer, guidance counselor, and math teacher.
Strong Interest Inventory (SII).
In 2007, Stanford released the new Strong, known as the Strong Interest Inventory (SII).
Previous editions - three-choice format, while the revised version - five-choice, Likert-type format with icons for “Strongly Like,” “Like,” “Indifferent,” “Dislike,” and “Strongly Dislike.”
A core component of the SII is the Basic Interest Scales (BIS) - substantial changes in work life and workplaces new SII includes 41 content scales to represent these areas, 244 occupational scales.
this one - there is more focus on careers in business and technology for both men and women. For example, 122 of the scales include different pairs for men and women.
Examples of the new normative groups include greater diversity in terms of ethnic groups, race, and diversity in the workforce.
First published evaluation of the SII
First published evaluation of the SII considered 31 college majors in a national college sample of 1403 women and 469 men to evaluate the relationships between content scales and choice of college major. The study showed substantial concurrent validity for a wide variety of college major choices
basic interest scales were the best predictors of selection of major.
The Kuder Occupational Interest Survey
most widely used interest inventory today, it competes with many other interest inventories.
Kuder Occupational Interest Survey (KOIS) ranks second in popularity.
grew out of the original Kuder Preference Survey published in 1939
KOIS presents the test taker with 100 triads (sets of three) of alternative activities
- For each triad, the test taker selects the most preferred and the least preferred alternatives
Scoring of the KOIS scales gives the same information yielded by the earlier Kuder Preference Surveys—data on 10 general occupational interests (e.g., outdoor interests versus social service interests).
However, in its current form, the KOIS examines the similarity between
a test taker’s interests and those of people employed in various occupations in a manner much like that of the SCII and CISS.
KOIS has developed separate norms for
The KOIS also has a separate set of scales for
KOIS has developed separate norms for men and women.
The KOIS also has a separate set of scales for college majors
Thus, in addition to
suggesting which occupational group might work best with a test taker’s interests,
the KOIS may also help students choose a major
To emphasize nontraditional occupations for men and women, a series of new scales has been added to the KOIS.
Examples of these new scales are architect
(female norms), journalist (female norms), and film and television producer or director (male norms)
The report is divided into four sections KOIS
1st section
First summarizes the dependability
of the results.
An analysis of answer patterns considers consistency.
The report shown in the table suggests that the results appear to be dependable for this particular test taker.
2nd Section KOIS
The second section rank orders interest patterns in comparison to the normative sample of men and women.
In this example, the person taking the test has exceptionally high interests in literary and outdoor areas in comparison to both men and women.
The female test taker had low interests in comparison to other women in the mechanical, social service, and persuasive areas.
Third section KOIS
The core of the KOIS report is shown in the third section - ranks the test taker in relation to men and women who are employed in different occupations and are satisfied with their career choices.
The report shows that the woman who completed the measure has a pattern of interests that best matches those of journalists who are satisfied with their work. The pattern also shows good correspondence with interests of lawyers, personnel managers, and physicians. The pattern matches most poorly with bank clerk, beautician, and department store sales.
Fourth Section KOIS
fourth section of the report matches patterns of interests to those of students who have selected different college majors.
The woman whose results are shown in this example matches interest patterns most closely with women who are majoring in history, English, or political science.
Her interests match most poorly with women majoring in physical education, nursing, and art.
Studies show that the psychometric properties of the KOIS are very good.
Short-term reliabilities tend to be high (between .80 and .95), and increasing evidence indicates that scores remain stable for as long as 30 years
One study on the predictive validity of the KOIS showed that half of one group of adults who had taken an early version of the KOIS while they were high-school students were working in fields that the high-school KOIS suggested they enter.
Predictive validity for the college major scales was even better. There was closer
correspondence between interests and the occupation a person was working in for
those who had completed college than for those who had not.
A college degree thus provides more freedom than a high-school diploma does in finding personally desirable work
high-school students reported greater confidence in their knowledge of themselves when they received KOIS results than when they did not.
. But knowing the results of the KOIS did not make the high-school students more confident or more satisfied with their career plans, except when the students expressed a special interest in learning about the test results
Other studies have considered self-efficacy for the specific occupational tasks in the KOIS.
Self-efficacy represents a person’s expectation that he or she could perform the tasks in the occupational groups.
The research suggests that, in comparison to women, men have higher expectations that they will succeed in mechanical and physical work, and women have greater expectations that they will succeed when working with people than do men
KOIS - a growing amount of evidence indicates that it may be quite useful for
guidance decisions for highschool and college students.
KOIS, although still in common use, has not
undergone a major revision since
1991
Studies using the KOIS have shown that career preferences are
Studies using the KOIS have shown that career preferences are quite stable over the course of time.
one study tested 107 highschool juniors and seniors in 1975 and then retested them 30 years later in 2005.
In general, occupational interests remained very stable, but some of the particular
interest scales were associated with instability in occupational interests
Jackson Vocational Interest Survey ( JVIS), revised in 1995 and copyrighted in 1999, is used for
Jackson Vocational Interest Survey ( JVIS), revised in 1995 and copyrighted in 1999, is used for the career education and counseling of high school and college students.
can also be used to plan careers for adults, including those who want to make midlife career changes.
Douglas Jackson, the developer of the measure, was strongly influenced by the psychometric pioneers from the Educational Testing Service
JVIS consists of 289 statements describing job-related activities. It takes 45 minutes to complete, and the scoring yields 34 basic interest scales.
The test construction carefully avoided gender bias.
The scale employs forced-choice formats in which the respondent must indicate a preference between two equally popular interests.
Reliability and Validtity JVIS
Studies suggest that the reliability for 10 general occupational themes is
approximately .89 and that the test–retest stability of the 44 basic interest scales
ranges from .84 to .88.
Validity studies suggest that the JVIS predicts university and academic majors more accurately than do most other interest inventories.
Available in both hand-scored and machine-scored forms, the JVIS offers computer software to administer and score the measure
The Career Assessment Inventory
designed for people not oriented toward careers requiring college or professional
training.
The CAI is written at the sixth-grade reading level and is designed for the 80% of U.S. citizens who have fewer than 4 years of postsecondary education.
CAI provides information similar to that yielded by the SII and CISS
Parts of the Career Assessment Inventory
Each test taker is evaluated on Holland’s six occupational theme scales: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional.
The second portion of the CAI report describes basic interests. Each test taker is evaluated in 22 specific areas, including carpentry, business, and food service.
The third section of the report is a series of occupational scales. Scores for the 89 occupational scales on the CAI were obtained by using a criterion-keying method. The interests of the test takers are matched to the interests of truck drivers, secretaries, waitpersons, and so forth.
Validity and reliability studies reported in the test manual suggest that the CAI has desirable psychometric properties
ported in the test manual suggest that the CAI has desirable psychometric properties. Scores tend to be quite stable, and people who find employment in occupations for which they have expressed strong interest tend to remain at their jobs and find more satisfaction with work than do those with low scores for those occupations.
The test developer also took special pains to make the CAI culturally fair and eliminate gender bias. In many ways, the CAI has become the working person’s CISS
The Self-Directed Search
Most interest inventories require professional or computer-automated scoring. In addition, they typically require interpretation by a trained counselor.
J. L. Holland developed the Self-Directed Search (SDS) to be a self-administered, self-scored, and self-interpreted vocational interest inventory (Holland, 2013)
SDS attempts to simulate the counseling process by allowing respondents to list occupational aspirations, indicate occupational preferences in six areas, and rate abilities and skills in these areas
Test takers can score their own inventory and calculate 6 summary scores - use to obtain codes that reflect the highest areas of interest
Using the SDS, test takers can develop a
meaningful personal career theory
The personal theory goes beyond interests and
includes readiness for career decision-making and readiness to obtain guidance
The SDS is linked to an occupational finder. In the 1994 edition of the system, the individual can locate more than 1300 occupations and match his or her own interest codes to corresponding occupational choices.
Items and scales of the SDS
SDS includes 228 items. Six scales with 11 items each describe activities.
Another 66 items assess competencies, with six scales of 11 items each
Occupations are evaluated in six scales of 14 items each. Self-estimates are obtained in two sets of six ratings.
Studies have demonstrated that respondents accurately score their own tests.
Validity studies reflect a moderate, but not high, association between SDS categories and stated vocational aspiration
Computer-assisted approaches to the self-directed search are now available
Eliminating Gender Bias in Interest Measurement
Not all members of the society have found the use and development of interest
inventories acceptable.
In particular, advocates of women’s rights justifiably pointed out that the early interest inventories discriminated against women
interest inventories contributed to the policy of guiding young men and women into gender-typed careers.
The interest inventories tended to direct women into their traditional work roles, such as nursing, clerical service, and elementary school teaching
The SVIB, the main interest inventory at the time of the commission report, had separate forms for men and women.
Careers on the women’s form, it was noted, tended to be lower in status and to command lower salaries
In response to these criticisms,
In response to these criticisms, the test developers began using the same forms for both men and women
1977 SCII manual, Campbell noted that if Strong were alive, he may have felt that using the same norming tables for both men and women would have harmed the validity of the test.
A unisex interest inventory, according to Strong, ignores the social and statistical reality that men and women have different interests.
knowing the sex of the test taker tells us a lot about his or her interests.
Nevertheless, the measure developers began to make major efforts to reduce gender bias, and newer measures, such as the CISS (Campbell, 1995), have gone even further.
In the most recent versions, normative samples have been expanded to ensure larger and more representative samples. The 2007 SII has separate normative scales for men and women.
Most measures have reduced but not eliminated gender bias.
many items in the Strong Interest Inventory function differently for men and for women
these differences have been observed in
cultures as different as the United States and Iceland
Interest inventory developers have worked hard to address these concerns.
Although the basic interest and general theme portions of the SII and CISS compare a respondent’s responses with those from a combined male and female reference group, the occupational scales are normed separately for men and women.
We expect that using the same or different norms for men and women will continue to engender controversy and debate.
The current versions of the CISS, KOIS, and SII reflect the growing concern about gender bias (Campbell, 1995; Hansen & Campbell, 1987). Because career choices for many women are complex, interest inventories alone may be inadequate and more comprehensive approaches are needed
Interest inventories have been around for several generations, making it possible
to compare interests of groups born at different points in time.
In the 1940s and1950s, when career interest inventories got their start, the world was a very different place.
Only a small percentage of women completed college and there was little ethnic and racial variability on most campuses (see Figure 16.1).
By 1971, about 42% of college graduates were female and 58% were male. By 2016, that trend had reversed, with women earning nearly 60% of bachelor’s degree
Budany and Hansen (2011) studied changes in vocational interests across birth cohorts of college students by integrating samples collected between 1976 and 2004.
They identified doctoral dissertations and journal articles that had used the Strong
Interest Inventory and the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory and had information
on the Holland’s RIASEC typology.
there were 12,039 females and 9550 subjects
Between 1976 and 2004, college women showed an increase in enterprising interests,
while college men demonstrated a decrease in the realistic and investigative interests.
Back in the 1970s, there were significant differences between college men and
women in investigative, enterprising, and conventional interests
Aptitudes and Interests
Extensive research on interest inventories reinforces an important but often overlooked point: Interest inventories measure interests, not the odds that people will succeed in the jobs that they find interesting.
Norm groups for the Strong inventories consist of people successful enough in various fields to remain working in them for defined periods
However, degree of success is not defined.
If you obtain a high score for a particular occupation, then it means that you have interests similar to those of the people in that field. Self-rated satisfaction with chosen careers does appear to be higher for people whose interests match those of others working in the field, but repeated studies have emphasized
that the chances of succeeding in that job depend on aptitudes and abilities.
Measuring Personal Characteristics for
Job Placement
Interests are just one of the many factors to be considered in career planning and
placement.
Career choices also depend on matches between skills and jobs.
Employers want to find the right person for the job, and job hunters continually seek that one position that perfectly suits their personal skills and interests
psychologists and vocational guidance specialists look at job placement from many different perspectives. Some focus on the person and his or her characteristics, others attend the work environment, while still others concentrate on unique combinations of
people and situations
Are There Stable Personality Traits?
People often believe that knowledge of
such personality traits provides them with a convenient way of organizing information
about others—for describing how they have behaved in the past and for predicting
how they will act in the future
the very concept of personality assumes that the characteristics of a person are stable over time.
Although we commonly use trait names in this way to describe other people, the evidence that personality characteristics are stable is a little shaky.
Mischel (1984) showed that personality traits are simply not good predictors of how people will behave in particular situations
Mischel (1968) demonstrated that knowing how someone scores on measures of psychological traits sometimes gives little better than chance insight into how the person will act in a given situation
Career assessments may be a good exception to Mischel’s criticism.
The career inventories do not assess personality traits.
Instead, they evaluate how people will respond to some well-defined situations.
In fact, most studies do suggest that career interests are quite stable over long periods of time
Mischel and his colleagues eventually softened
on their belief about consistency of behaviors over time.
For example, they had tested children’s ability to delay gratification over 40 years ago. When some of the same people performed similar tasks 40 years later, they found that impulsiveness tended to be relatively stable (Shermer, 2015). Children who were unable to delay gratification was more likely to be impulsive as adults
Other Uses of Interest Matching Methods: The Case of Internet Dating
Developing computer algorithms for matching interest profiles was once technologically difficult.
As result, methods for matching interests are now used in a variety of different fields relevant to counseling psychology. Perhaps the most rapid growth has taken place in Internet dating.
Estimates provided by the Pew Charitable Trust indicate that about 11% out of the 38% of American adults who are currently single and considering a new relationship have used Internet dating services.
Among those who have used the services, about two-thirds have gone on a date with someone they met online and about a quarter met a spouse or someone they engaged in a long-term relationship
Most people using the services agree that
online dating is a good way to meet a partner
There are a lot of different Internet dating websites. Most relevant to our discussion are services that are based on scientific algorithms
These came online around 2000 with the development of eHarmony.com. eHarmony was developed by a clinical psychologist with training in personality psychology (Warren, 1994). The methodology uses self-report questionnaires to identify preferences, interests, and values.
Within a few years, a variety of very similar services were developed, including PerfectMatch and Chemistry.
One of the biggest problems in evaluating Internet dating sites is that the actual
methods are hidden from the public.
We do not know exactly how the computer
makes the matches. The eHarmony survey includes 13 sections with approximately
300 items. These 300 items provide scores on 29 dimensions that they believe are
related to successful long-term relationships.
The items ask for endorsement of
personality adjectives such as warm and competitive, and also ask about interests
including volunteering and being physically fit. In addition, they ask about descriptions of emotions, such as being happy or angry.
Respondants are also asked
to provide self-reports about characteristics such as the ability to make other people
laugh. We were able to retrieve the patent application for eHarmony.com, which
suggests that the matches are based on personality, socioeconomic status, religion,
appearance, ethnic background, energy level, education, and interests (Buckwalter,
Carter, Forgatch, Parsons, & Warren, 2013).
Other dating services use different
questionnaires and items, but most of them focus on personality traits of both the
clients and their idealized partners.
