Some Data On the Kuder Preference Record

A WELL-ROUNDED guidance program calls for at least four types of objective measures: general intelligence, achievement in various fields of study, aptitudes of different types, and interests or motivation. Far more progress has been made in the first three of these areas than in the fourth. In recent years, however, there has been an especially large amount of experimentation in the last area and some promising measuring instruments are beginning to emerge. The majority of the noteworthy instruments for appraising interests have been concerned with occupational preferences. The most important work in this field has been done by Strong, who has constructed blanks and prepared scales for the measurement of the interests of men with respect to 34 occupations and the interests of women in connection with 18 occupations. Although the instruments developed for the measurement of interest in specific vocations unquestionably have important guidance values, at least two considerations point to a trend away from the measurement of interests in occupations as such and toward the measurement of interests in broad fields. One consideration is based on observation and research. It has beeq known almost from the first attempts to measure vocational interests that interests in certain vocations are rather highly correlated. It has been apparent that there are clusters of occupations that have 80 many points of similarity that interest in one occupation is a strong indication of interest in several others. Factoranalysis studies have given emphasis to this point. For example, by means of a factorial analysis of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank, Thurstone~ found four interest groups. These groups were associated with science, language, people, and business. The second consideration grows out of the practical, everyday work of counselors and personnel officers. These workers have found that frequently when one is attempting to guide the development of secondary-school pupils, or even of college freshmen, guidance with respect to sp·_cific occupations is not needed. In fact, guidance into specialization so early would in many cases be unwarranted. What is needed is a valid, reliable measure of interests in fairly broad fields so that the individual may be guided in the general direction of a group of related occupations, one of which will perhaps be chosen definitely when the student has attained greater maturity. Strong, himself, has been one of the first to recognize the need for broader measurement, of interests as well as measurement of interests related to specific vocations. In line with this viewpoint, he has recently published several group scales for the measurement of interests in broad