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.

An examination of gender imbalance in Scottish adolescents’ vocational interests

This paper documents Scottish adolescents’ vocational interest types. Our research is based on the responses of 1,306 pupils from 18 secondary schools to an empirically verified online interest inventory test. Our results are threefold. First, the structural validity of the test with the Scottish sample is confirmed by evaluating the underlying circumplex structure of Holland’s RIASEC vocational interests. Second, gender distribution along the six primary vocational interest dimensions is consistent with the research literature: young men scoring higher on the Realistic vocational interest and young women scoring higher on the Social dimension. Finally, we observe that across dimensions, vocational interests of young women are less diverse than those of young men. We discuss how these dissimilarities could lead to differences in education choice and career decision-making.

An Experiment to Investigate the Impacts of ICT-Based-Games on Students’ Interest and Academic Achievement

“Mathematics is the mother of all sciences” is common phrase that we all know very well. Even it is the least interesting subject among the students. Teaching method is a common but known factor which makes this subject least interesting. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to explore whether game-based teaching can change students’ interest and improves achievement? For this, 108 female students and 10 elementary mathematics teachers participated in this study. Researchers used one group pre-test/post-test research method to measure the impacts of ICT-based-games on students’ achievement and interest in the subject of mathematics. An achievement test and an interest inventory was used as tools of this study. Teaching mathematics through ICT-based-games and participants’ prior knowledge of playing online games were the independent variables. While participants’ interest and achievement in the subject were the dependent variables. It was concluded at the end that teaching mathematics with the help of games has no significant impact on students’ interest in the subject of mathematics but their achievement scores were improved at the end.

Spanish Adaptation of the Self- and Other-Interest Inventory in Academic Settings

In the study of human motivations, self-interest is often seen as a determining factor and opposed to other-interest. Recently a new conceptualization has been proposed in which both interests can occur at the same time. In order to measure these constructs, the Self-and Other-Interest Inventory (SOII; Gerbasi & Prentice, 2013) was created, which has one version for adults and one for students. Due to the absence of similar measurement instruments in Spain, the aim of this work is to adapt the SOII to Spanish university students. Several studies were conducted. First, the construct was analyzed through rational-analytical procedures. Second, the items were translated following an iterative forward-translation design. Finally, evidence of validity was obtained through analytical procedures. Specifically, two pilot studies were carried out in which two independent samples of Spanish students participated (N1 = 119; N2 = 165). In both studies descriptive analyzes of the items were performed, reliability was estimated and the factor structure of the SOII was explored from an exploratory factor analysis. The results showed adequate reliability and a two-factor solution consistent with the original.