Changing of the Guard: Interpretive Continuity of the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory

Abstract

This study is the first to examine the equivalence of the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory with the 1994 Strong. The authors examine the parallel content scales of the two versions for female and male college students separately ( n = 622). The scales include the six General Occupational Themes (GOTs), 22 of the 25 Basic Interest Scales (BISs) of the 1994 Strong, and four of the Personal Style Scales (PSSs). The mean differences between the two Strongs were mostly within .5 of a standard deviation (Cohen's d < .5). There was a pattern of slightly higher means on the 2005 Strong, possibly because of the 2005 Strong standardization sample compares to the 1994 norm group, being more ethnically diverse, less educated, and more representative of the 2000 U.S. Census. The correlations of the 1994 and 2005 content scales were ≥ .85 for the GOTs and PSSs, except for the Risk Taking/Adventure PSS. The 1994 and 2005 analoged US BIS correlations ranged from .64 to .97. The effect sizes for sex were comparable across versions.

Relation of Reinforcement Sensitivity on Vocational Interest and Self-Efficacy

“…Holland’s RIASEC Big 6 was operationalized by the six GOTs which include realistic (R), investigative (I), artistic (A), social (S), enterprising (E), and conventional (C). As reported in the 2005 SII manual (Donnay et al, 2005), the combined gender standardized mean for each of the GOTs is 50 ( SD = 10), although some means vary by gender by more than half of a SD (Bailey, Larson, Borgen, & Gasser, 2008). Donnay et al (2005) reported Cronbach’s α coefficients for the SII subscales ranging from .90 to .95.…”

Predicting Science Achievement in India

“…Scholars have noticed that girls perform similarly to boys in mathematics and sciences courses (e.g., Denissen et al, 2007). However, girls are somewhat less interested than boys in mathematics as shown in Western samples (e.g., Bailey, Larson, Borgen, & Gasser, 2008;Frenzel, Goetz, Pekrun, & Watt, 2010;Köller et al, 2001;Marsh et al, 2005). Likewise, girls appear to be somewhat less interested in the sciences compared to boys in Western countries (e.g., Bailey et al, 2008;Francis & Greer, 1999;Hoffman, 2002).…”

“…However, girls are somewhat less interested than boys in mathematics as shown in Western samples (e.g., Bailey, Larson, Borgen, & Gasser, 2008;Frenzel, Goetz, Pekrun, & Watt, 2010;Köller et al, 2001;Marsh et al, 2005). Likewise, girls appear to be somewhat less interested in the sciences compared to boys in Western countries (e.g., Bailey et al, 2008;Francis & Greer, 1999;Hoffman, 2002). In addition, some preliminary results suggest that the interest-achievement correlation may be smaller for girls than for boys in predominantly Western samples (e.g., Denissen et al, 2007;Hoffman, 2002;Schiefele, Krapp, & Winterler, 1992).…”

The role of personality in the selection of a major: With and without vocational self-efficacy and interests

“…In this study, we chose a well known personality model developed by Auke Tellegen and colleagues consisting of 11 comprehensive, nonoverlapping personality traits, which were operationalized in the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ, Tellegen, 2000;Tellegen and Waller, 2000;2008). The 11 MPQ primary scales have several strengths in investigating the association between personality and selection of college majors.…”

“…The 2005 SII has been normed on a nationally representative sample, which includes 30% of ethnic minority individuals, and represents 373 different occupations (Donnay et al, 2005).The six GOTs have high internal consistency with coefficient alpha exceeding .90 for each theme and 3 to 6 month test-retest reliability coefficients exceeding .80 (Donnay et al, 2005). The 2005 GOTs have shown predictive utility in predicting college major (Gasser et al, 2007), and have been shown to be equivalent to the 1994 GOTs (Bailey, Larson, Borgen, & Gasser, 2008).…”