DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17957872
title: Comparison of the professional interests of students and IT professionals

description: Description

This dataset supports the analysis of RIASEC (Holland Code) vocational interests across three distinct groups in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector: first-year ICT students, upper-year ICT students (2nd-4th year) of Zhytomyr State Polytechnic University, and professional IT workers in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine. The study investigates how vocational interests develop and change through education and professional experience in the IT field.

The RIASEC model, developed by John Holland (1997), organizes vocational interests into six types: Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and Conventional (C). The study uses the 18REST-2 questionnaire (Ambiel et al., 2018; Martins et al., 2024), an 18-item instrument measuring all six RIASEC dimensions with 3 items per dimension, rated on a 4-point scale.

Data Collection



First-year ICT students (N=83): Online survey conducted August 28-30, 2025, at Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University

Upper-year ICT students (N=67): Online survey conducted October 21 - November 6, 2025, at Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University

IT professionals (N=39): Survey of successful software developers from Zhytomyr companies, conducted November 4-5, 2025


All participation was voluntary and anonymous.

File Contents

Data Files (CSV format)

(data)ICT_students_1st_year_2025.csv (N=83)



Processed survey data from first-year ICT students entering in 2025

Contains calculated psychological scales including:



HEXACO personality traits: Honesty-Humility (H), Emotionality (E), eXtraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), Openness to Experience (O)

RIASEC vocational interests: Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), Conventional (C)

SCL-90-R psychological symptoms: 9 subscales measuring distress dimensions (Hostility, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Somatization, Depression, Paranoid Ideation, Anxiety, General Exhaustion)

Q-method educational orientations: 8 ranked positions representing different motivations for university study (Edu_Pos_1 through Edu_Pos_8)



Demographic variables: age, gender, previous education level, location of previous education, specialty

All raw questionnaire responses have been processed into validated scale scores


(data)ICT_students_2_4_years_2025.csv (N=67)



Processed survey data from 2nd through 4th year ICT students

Same structure and calculated scales as first-year student data


(data)IT_companies_2025.csv (N=39)



Represents successful professionals selected for demonstrated competence

Processed survey data from professional IT workers

Same structure and calculated scales as student data


Analysis Scripts (R)

(script)RIASEC_samples_comparison.R



Statistical comparison of RIASEC interests across three samples

Performs ANOVA with effect size calculations (eta-squared)

Tests for homogeneity of variance (Levene's test)

Generates descriptive statistics for each group

Conducts post-hoc pairwise comparisons

Creates comprehensive statistical summary tables in "Outputs" sub-directory


(script)RIASEC_visualization.R



Creates the following visualizations:



Hexagonal radar chart (Holland's hexagon) showing mean RIASEC profiles for all three groups

Trajectory plots showing development patterns across groups

Violin plots highlighting the dramatic Investigative interest U-curve



Follows color scheme: ICT First Year (blue), ICT 2-4 Years (purple), IT Professionals (orange)

Generates PNG outputs to the same directory


Reference Materials

(text)questionnaire.txt

Complete questionnaire in Ukrainian as administered to participants, including



Informed consent information

Sociodemographic questions

HEXACO-60 personality items (18 items, short version)

Q-method educational orientation ranking task (8 statements)

18REST-2 RIASEC interest items (18 items, 3 per dimension)

SCL-9-NR symptom checklist items (9 items from standard scales)


Technical Notes

All scale scores are pre-calculated from validated psychometric instruments.

RIASEC scores use the 18REST-2 scoring algorithm (sum of 3 items per dimension).

HEXACO scores represent the mean of items per facet.

SCL-9-NR scores follow the updated 2025 version with modified item wording and revised response scale to reduce social desirability bias (Dembitskyi et al., 2025).

Data are completely anonymous with no personally identifying information.