History of Interest inventories

Interest inventories and career assessments continue to be used to support

practitioners as they work to uncover client interests, abilities, skills, motivations,
values, and other personal factors that help individuals self-define and construct
their career. The skilled use of career inventories and assessments remains a
minimum competency of career service providers' ability to successfully partner
with their clients. A history of the evolution of assessment from 1914 through
1974 and considerations for the future of assessment are highlighted to provide
historical perspective to inform practitioners as they serve the diverse needs of
complex client populations.
Although interest inventories have been a dominant career practitioner
methodology for service delivery to clients, few have studied or recognized the
changes that have occurred within these instruments over the years. As a
significant component in the field of career counseling, career assessment can be
seen as a "bridge from career development theory to practice, a method of
operationalizing theoretical constructs by incorporating them into career
interventions and, in particular, into tests and other measurements" (Whitfield,
Feller, & Wood, 2009, p. 14). A history of the development of assessments, tools,
and interventions allows us to understand motivations, trends, and
environmental/social/ political factors that have affected how we historically and
currently serve clients. Practitioner knowledge of the evolution of assessment in
the field of career counseling is critical to inform how career counselors move
forward to ensure that clients remain the top priority as career counselors
continue to innovate and develop career services.
With an ever-changing U.S. workplace and economic environment, clients face a
future where 63% of all jobs will require a postsecondary education, more than one
third of all job openings will not require a college degree, one third of the jobs will
require 1 month or less of on-the-job experience to fully qualify, and only 76% of
public high school students will earn a diploma within 4 years of entering the ninth
grade (otherwise stated, 1 million students will fail to earn a high school diploma

each year; Rumberger, 2011). In reaction to these factors, career counselors may
search for additional applications of inventories to cope with and support their
clients, which increasingly include returning veterans, laid-off workers, and
students leaving school with skills deficits and heavy debt.
To serve the complex needs of diverse client populations, career practitioners will
benefit from a history of the evolution of assessment from 1914 through 1974,
past uses of available resources, and key takeaways that inform the future of
assessment on a global level. The majority of inventories in this history are out of
print. Inventories that continue to be in use or were developed in the second half
of the history (beyond 1974) are referenced for the reader to obtain more
information in the National Career Development Association's (NCDA) A
Counselor's Guide to Career Assessment Instruments (hereinafter referred to as
A Counselor's Guide; Whitfield et al., 2009).
This history begins with Jesse Davis (1914) publishing the Student Vocational Self
Analysis for all public school 10th graders. Davis systemized an analysis of selfawareness to occupations process. Although Davis was an educator, a principal in
the Detroit and Grand Rapids public schools, the majority of the authors to follow
were psychologists serving primarily adult and college student clients. In 1917, the
first of these psychologists, James Miner, studied whether students' preferences
were their own or due to teachers' influence and he then went on to develop
interest questions with weighted scores. Brewer's (1942) History of Vocational
Guidance described Miner's work extensively and cited his questionnaire on
interests as "the forerunner of Strong's later researches" (p. 203).
During this intensified developmental period, E. K. Strong worked at the Carnegie
Institute of Technology, and, in 1923, he was recruited to Stanford University.
Two resources that further explore the Carnegie era are Fryer's (1931) The
Measurement of Interests and Fryer and Henry's (1950) Handbook of Applied
Psychology. Across the decades to come, the publication and utilization of Strong's
work accelerated and became a dominant influence within the field.
E. K. Strong developed The Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB), which was
published in 1927 by Stanford University Press, in Stanford, California, and The

Vocational Interest Blank for Women in 1933. Strong used the same eight types of
items for both genders: occupational titles, school subjects, hobbies and
amusements, occupational activities, kinds of people, forced choice of preferences
and activities, and self-identification with various personal characteristics
In 1974, the Strong--Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) moved away from
separate gender-specific booklets as a means of eliminating sex bias and promoting
more equal gender treatment. The items for the SVIB--SCII were, with nvo
exceptions, taken from the earlier Strong booklets, either from the men's form,
published in 1966, or the women's form, published in 1968 (Campbell, 1974, p. 5).
At this time, John Holland's theory was integrated within the instrument's
framework. A complete overview of this instrument can be found in NCDA's A
Counselor's Guide
In contrast to Thurstone's ipsative method, Bertram Forer (1948) developed the
Diagnostic Interest Blank based on a projective methodology with 80 incomplete
sentences scored on the following: reactions to authorities, coworkers, criticism,
challenge, taking orders, responsibility, causes of aggression, anxiety, failure, job
turnover, and vocational goals. Introduction of this information was certainly
additive, leading to more holistic and more personal interpretations. As career
assessments and inventories continued to develop within graduate school programs
and their use with younger people was encouraged, the field shifted to emphasize a
commercially focused approach to the publication of these resources.
Science Research Associates, a subsidiary of IBM in Chicago, Illinois published
Frederic Kuder's Kudcr Preference Record in 1940 and The Kuder Occupational
Survey, Form DD in 1956. There were several forms of the Preference Record.
They included seven scales to which mechanical and clerical occupations were later
added. In 1948, the Kuder Preference Record, Vocational, Form C, proved to have
the greatest use. It had 10 scales: Science, Computational, Art, Music, Literary,
Social, Persuasive, Clerical, Mechanical, and Outdoors. Research-based interest
inventories could be faked, so a verification scale was included in the instrument to
identify people who were intentionally trying to make a good impression and
manipulate results. The item format of a triad with three choices, where the
respondent selected the most liked option and the least liked option, was a unique

contribution. A separate interpretive booklet displayed a listing of appropriate

related occupations for each of the two highest interest scales.
The second half of this history is found in NCDA's A Counselor's Guide, the most
recent being the fifth edition (Whitfield et al., 2009). This book is a living up-todate reference, including updates and advances to current additions, as well as
validation information, which serves as the most critical information needed to
assess an instrument. The combination of insights into the first half of the history
within this article and the extensive summary of reviews of assessment in A
Counselor's Guide fill a regrettable gap of testing and career assessment
textbooks, which provide coverage of only several interest inventories and neglect
the expansive richness of this major service delivery tool within the field
(Whitfield et al., 2009).
A significant foundation of career assessment exists to inform practitioners by
providing additional insights, information, and resources to support client growth
and awareness. As the profession moves forward faced with an increasingly global
world and evolving workplace.
the question relative to career assessment is: do
our current instruments measure personal flexibility,
commitment to continuous learning, comfort with cultural
diversity, ability to work in tearns willingness to
engage in multitasking, selfinitiative, the ability
to be creative, and the motivation to be responsible
for one's own career development?