Vocational interests of gifted adolescents

Vocational interests of intellectually gifted and highly achieving young adults

“…In the SMPY, gifted girls scored higher than gifted boys on artistic and social interests ( d =−.89 and d =−1.04, respectively), whereas gifted boys scored higher than gifted girls on realistic interests ( d = .60; Schmidt et al , 1998). Mixed findings have been reported for investigative interests: whereas some older studies found no differences between gifted boys and gifted girls (Fox, Pasternak, & Peiser, 1976; Schmidt et al , 1998), another found that although intellectually gifted females reported stronger investigative interests than non‐gifted females, the intensity of their investigative interest did not exceed that of non‐gifted males (Sparfeldt, 2007).…”

“…At age 13, the gifted students scored high on the scales measuring investigative and artistic vocational interests; the difference between the gifted group and the norm group was about d = .30 (cf. Sparfeldt, 2007). Fifteen years later, the gifted participants’ scores on the realistic, investigative, artistic, and social scales had increased, but their scores on the enterprising and conventional scales had dropped markedly.…”

“…A more recent study by Sparfeldt (2006, 2007) addressed many of the methodological concerns mentioned above. Sparfeldt analysed vocational interest data within a large longitudinal study on giftedness, the Marburg Giftedness Project (Rost, 2000), in which gifted students were selected from a representative sample of third year primary school students by their performance on a test of general intelligence (IQ ≥ 130, N = 107).…”

Fostering Today What is Needed Tomorrow: Investigating Students’ Interest in Science

“…Although the model seems to employ stereotypes and people are, of course, generally more multifaceted, it was and still is used for vocational counseling (US: Strong Interest Inventory®, National Center for O*NET Development; Germany: Fux, Stoll, Bergmann, Eder, & Hell, ) and to assess (also young) students’ interest in vocational activities (Lubinski, Benbow, & Ryan, ; Schmidt, Lubinski, & Benbow, ; Sparfeldt, ). Schmidt et al.…”

“…This categorization according to the RIASEC facets enables a comparison with analogously rated occupations (Table 1), which is supposed to lead to a person-employment-congruency and thus to high performance and job satisfaction. Although the model seems to employ stereotypes and people are, of course, generally more multifaceted, it was and still is used for vocational counseling (US: Strong Interest Inventory R , National Center for O*NET Development; Germany: Fux, Stoll, Bergmann, Eder, & Hell, 2002) and to assess (also young) students' interest in vocational activities (Lubinski, Benbow, & Ryan, 1995;Schmidt, Lubinski, & Benbow, 1998;Sparfeldt, 2007). Schmidt et al (1998), for example, discovered that gifted 13-year-old female students are especially interested in investigative and artistic activities, whereas gifted male students are especially interested in realistic and investigative occupational activities.…”