The article describes the development and validation of the Career Personality Styles Inventory (CPSI). The CPSI comprehensively assesses Holland's career personality styles with only 22 items. Based on a series of 3 studies, we found satisfactory internal consistency, factor structure, and criterion validities of the newly constructed CPSI.

We present the PreferenSort, a career counseling instrument that derives counselees' vocational interests from their preferences among occupational titles. The PreferenSort allows for a holistic decision process, while taking into account the full complexity of occupations and encouraging deliberation about one's preferences and acceptable…

In this study, data collected from 875 college freshman and sophomore students enrolled in a 4-year university in central China are used to examine the applicability and validity of a Chinese version of Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) that was adapted in the 1990s. The total sample was randomly divided into two groups. Data from the first…

Using Item Response Theory (IRT) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), the goal of this study was to select a reduced pool of items from the French Canadian version of the Self-Directed Search--Activities Section (Holland, Fritzsche, & Powell, 1994). Two studies were conducted. Results of Study 1, involving 727 French Canadian students,…

A sample of male Investigative subjects (N=171) who completed the SDS as freshmen in 1970 was sent a questionnaire four years later. Results indicated that, for Investigative-type freshman males, the SDS has moderately high efficiency in predicting, four years later, their ultimate major and their immediate and future vocational plans. (Author)

Tested whether scores on the Self Directed Search relate to career development needs in a study of 138 college students. Findings showed the scores related differentially in ways predicted by Holland (1973) and supported probing whether college students earning low investigative scores were behind in their career development. (JAC)

Examined validity of self-estimates of ability on a vocational interest measure (Self-Directed Search). Correlated self-ratings of 149 female undergraduates with well-validated measures of abilities corresponding to each of Holland's six interest domains. Found higher correlations between self-ratings of abilities and objective measures than for…

The psychological meaning and predictive value of a person's vocational aspirations were examined by applying Holland's typology to the vocational aspirations of high school juniors (N=1,005), college juniors (N=692), employed adults (N=140), and a second sample of college students studied over a 1 year interval (N=624). The aspirational data were…

Graduating seniors in the School of Business who were in either accounting, marketing, or behavioral studies and were seeking a career consistent with their area's concentration were compared for their scores on the Self-Directed Search. The accounting group was consistently differentiated from the other group. (Author)

Tests Holland's assertion that stability of vocational choice can be predicted from: (a) congruence of personality with chosen career; (b) differentiation of personality; and (c) internal consistency of personality characteristics. The relationship of three constructs to stability of choice of college major was studied among 167 university…

Several Predictors of occupational choice derived from a theory of careers were examined. Hypotheses that a person's competencies, activities, self-estimates, interests, and vocational choices can be organized to understand and predict subsequent choice were tested. Findings support both the theory and the validity of the Self-Directed Search.…

The author reviews the evidence for the beneficial effects of the Self-Directed Search (SDS), indicates that Hanson and Prediger have misinterpreted the theory, that their evidence is misleading, and that other evidence indicates that males and females of the same type are similar. The virtues of raw scores are summarized. (Author)