The Development and Validation of a Vocational Interest Survey Instrument With Audio-Visual Format
Authors:   ,   Andrews University, Elliott Paul 
Published: June 2023

Problem. Many present day vocational interest surveys rely exclu­sively on printed reading materials to assess youngsters' vocational interest . The use of printed reading materials alone may not best serve the youngsters who are unable to read or who learn best through a different kind of learning structure . There needs to be a variety of valid assessing techniques that explore the youngster's vocational interest. These techniques should not raise side issues of academic skills, but provide a pure measure of interest . The purpose of this research was to develop and test an instrument using photographs as choice stimulants in place of a printed reading list of occupations. Method. Six hundred and thirteen subjects were chosen by a stratified random method from among a polled sample population of 799 persons. The 613 subjects were divided into three major re­search groups. The first group was the professional-worker group which consisted of 202 people who were employed in occupational classifications similar to one of the six classifications hypothesized by John Holland (1973). The second group was the secondary sample which consisted of 200 students whose vocational major was similar to one of the six Holland typologies, and third; the post secondary sample which included 211 members whose major two-year study was similar to one of the six Holland types. Each group was administered the Visual Imagery Selector for Indexing Occupational Needs (V .I.S .I.O .N .), an instrument especially designed for this study. The professional-worker sample was also administered the Vocational Preference Inventory (V.P.I .) to compare similarities between the two vocational surveys. The other two student samples were administered only the V .I.S .I.O .N . survey. The V .I .S .I .O .N . survey consists of 120 slides depicting two types of vocational work tasks as described by Holland. The individual taking the inventory selected one of the work tasks he/she performed from the slides and marked their response on an answer sheet especially designed for the study. The responses were tabulated for each participating sample and prepared for analysis. An analysis was used for all sample populations to determine if the expected frequency of responses were the same or differ­ent than the observed frequency of responses. Second, a factor analysis was performed for the professional-worker sample alone to determine if any similarities existed between the V .I.S .I.O .N . and the V .P .I. surveys. Results. People employed or going to school that were appropriately grouped under one o f the six occupational types purposed by Holland chose photographs of work tasks that were most nearly like their own work experience or school majors . A comparison between the V .I.S .I.O .N . occupational interest inventory and the V .P .I. occupational interest inventory showed a similarity between elements of two tests . That is , people who responded most often to one of the six major Holland types on the photographic occupational inventory also responded the same way on the printed occupational inventory . The answer sheet that was designed especially for the photographic inventory seemed to fulfill its expected role of response gathering and occupation informing for those people that were administering the survey. Conclusions. It is possible to assess occupational interest using photographs of people working in one of the six Holland occupational types. Information about work and work options can be described with a non-reading form at. More than half of the variance for both the analysis and the factor analysis for the three samples describe a strong relationship between the research variables and their concomitant parts . The advantages of such a format open the possibility of counselors for helping youngsters that either (1) do not have skills necessary to decipher printed descriptions of occupations or, (2) whose prime mode of learning is not reading. Since the test was used on a wide range of persons, it also holds the possibility for developmental study.