Multilingual Iconographic Professional Interest Inventory (MIPII): Development and Initial Validation

Vocational interest inventories are widely used by career counselors to help individuals to make career choices. The most common approach to assess vocational interests is based on verbal or textual stimuli. However, some of them are based on pictorials to overcome reading limits and provide additional information about the working environment and the activities related to a particular job. This article aims to present two studies on the development and first validation of the Multilingual Iconographic Professional Interest Inventory (MIPII) on two samples, one composed of 792 high-school students, and one composed of 366 middle school students. The inventory aimed to assesses the vocational interests of people over 19 areas by illustrations representing 95 jobs, five for each one, combined with their title in six different languages (Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French and Italian in this order). Both illustrations and titles are provided separately in the male and female version on the same page.

Review of Career Assessment Tools

This paper provides an overview of career assessment tools. Background on key career concepts is first introduced. A number of career assessment tools are then examined. These assessment tools included reviewing personal history, interest inventories, values assessments, personality assessments, and aptitude tests. The importance and limitations of these career assessment tools are then discussed.

Summaries

In the Netherlands and Flanders, vocational interest inventories are frequently used to address (study) career dilemmas. In contrast to their popularity in practice, in the Dutch language region, there is relatively little research looking at vocational interest(s) (inventories). This article introduces the Spherical Model of Vocational Interests and the Dutch translation of the Personal Globe Inventory(PGI; Tracey, 2002), a measure for this model. The Spherical Model adds Prestige interests as a third dimension of vocational interests to the traditional two-dimensional circumplex. Additionally, the Spherical model splits the traditional circumplex in eight, rather than six, interest domains. The quality of the Dutch PGI was investigated with 12 samples. The psychometric qualities of the full Dutch PGI and its short version appeared to be acceptable to exemplary: the items of the scales largely fitted with the appropriate scales, the scales correlated according to the expected circumplex order, and the reliabilities were acceptable. The largest gender difference was found on the People-versus-Things dimension. Additionally, younger and more educated people scored higher on Prestige interests. Future research could further the understanding of the content of the Prestige dimension and how this dimension affects (study) career processes and outcomes.

Towards an Understanding of Interest Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools

Many studies have examined the psychology of interest and interest development, with these studies spanning various fields such as educational psychology, personality development, and vocational guidance. However, the pragmatic benefit of being able to accurately measure interests has often overshadowed the broader potential benefits of research into interest development. Drawing from research across different fields, this article summarises the historical evolution of research into interest development, culminating with the four-phase model of interest development as advanced by Hidi and Renninger (2006). It proceeds to examine the impact of this research on the work of psychologists and counsellors in schools. Finally, this article concludes by problematising the current dominance of assessment services and the use of interest inventories, while exploring potential opportunities to better support student engagement through a broader understanding of interest development.