THE AUSTRALIAN COMPUTERIZED VOCATIONAL INTEREST INVENTORIES

DR. B.R. COSTELLO, Ph.D., F.C.P. (Lond), M.A.C.E.
Cassel Research Centre
Suites 1 - 5, #101 Beleura Hill Road, #101
Mornington, Victotia, Australia 3931
Telephone (059) 75 2777

The Australian Computerised Vocational Interest Inventory (ACVII) is a computer software program designed for IBM/ COMPAT and APPLE P.C. use by adults and secondary school students for grades 7-12. The second revision was formally released in late 1989 and is presently being used in each State of Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and the U.S.A. There are two separate forms. Form A is designed to assess the vocational interest from the vantage of the dominant brain (multiple choice items), and through the use of verbal type communication (Edwards, 1979). Form B is non-verbal (projected slides) directly related to job career areas, using biofeedback for neural measurements to assess hidden or unconscious interests of the individual (Cassel and Costello, 1988). ACVII Forms A and B are designed to assess the same 14 independently organised career interest areas and may be administered as separate instruments. However, in biofeedback assessment we compare conscious with unconscious responses between the same career interest clusters listed in the following categories:

1. Machine and Mechanical
2. Scientific and Assessment
3. Education and Social Services
4. Medical and Health Services
5. Clerical and Business
6. Management and Supervision
7. Agriculture and Life Sciences
8. Performing Arts and Aesthetics
9. Crafts and Trades
10. Law Enforcement and Military
11. Marketing and Sales
12. Labour and Elemental
13. Engineering and Physical Sci
14. Communication and Transport

The ACVII-A software program consists of a self-scoring 280 item inventory, already containing norms for standardisation, printed out when completing the inventory. A two page graphic report with both standardised and raw scores is provided. A set of printed key descriptions for each of the (14) career interest categories is provided for photocopying by teachers/vocational counsellors. Comprehensive report booklets are thus developed for students providing ACVII summaries of first, second, and third selections together with career areas that are decidedly of little interest. All students and adults in the reported study completed ACVII on IBM/APPLE PC’s and received comprehensive reports. On releasing the second revision, the same procedure was used by fifty or more test administrators by 1990.

Australian Norms

Standardisation data depicted in this manuscript summarises Manual content., revealing statistically significant differences between male and female individuals, secondary student and adult populations. A manual of statistical analysis, detailing the following norms for each of the following Australian populations, is available on request.

1. Secondary Male Students
2. Secondary Female Students
3. General Secondary Students
4. Adult Male Individual
5. Adult Female Individual
6. General Adult Population

Additional sophisticated equipment is necessary to administer Form B. ACVII-B biofeedback equipment and interface required nine years in development and will be available generally in Australia (Cassel and Costello, 1989, 1990). This hardware and software system is the subject of a second article and will be released after presentation in San Francisco (American Board of Medical Psychotherapists), June 1990.

Standardisation of A CVII-A for Secondary Students

The initial standardisation for Form A was accomplished for N = 142 llth Year students at the Langwarrin Secondary College, in 1987. There were 142 students in this first study, the total population of the class comprising 69 females and 73 males. Students ranged in age from 15 to 18 years with a mean age of 16.25 years and a standard deviation (SD) of 0.548 years.

Pearson r’s for part scores and related variables are contained in the manual. Apart from the initial study completed at Langwarrin Secondary College, further ACVII-A administration and statistical analysis has been completed. On each occasion, numeric data was retained for the compilation of norms, contained in the ACVII Manual. Provision for a ten year comparative research study has been planned for types of secondary schools, and differences between Australian States, including cross-cultural norms between Great Britain, New Zealand, Russia and the U.SA. test populations. Additional countries will be included when ACVII translations have been completed.

A principal components factor analysis was computed using varimax rotations for purposes of maximising the loadings and data interpretation. All 14 scores on the ACVII-A displayed independence of organisation based on factorial content, intercorrelation between scores and Principal Components Factor Analysis With Varimax Rotations was also performed.

Male/Female Comparisons

Means and SD for each of the 14 scores on the ACVII, showing male and female scores separately was evaluated. For 7 or half of the 14 scores on the ACVII-A, males scored significantly higher than females: Mechanical, Scientific, Management, Agriculture, Crafts, Law/Military, and Engineering. Only on three of the scores did the female students score significantly higher than males: Education, Medical, and Clerical. For four of the 14 scores there were no statistically significant differences obtained: Aesthetics, Sales, Communication, and Labour/Elemental.

Discriminant Analysis

Discriminant analysis was computed using rotated factor scores between male and female students. It can be seen that by use of "blind" prediction, not one single error was made, showing that male and female career interests on the ACVII-A are different for male and female students. Separate norms are necessary for truly valid comparisons. While the same inventory can be used for both male and female subjects, (because general norms are also offered) the norms are imperatively different, regardless of preconceived ideas about male/female job mutuality.

Parent-Socio-Economic Level

The present primary career in which both the mother and father are involved was coded in terms of Anna Rowe’s Socio-Economic Index (1) Professional. (2) Semi-Professional. (3) Clerical Business and Farming. (4) Skilled Trades. (5) Semi Skilled Trades. (6) Labour and elemental.

Conclusions

Multiple R’s suggest the following implications when only the R = 0.756 for SEX was held as statistically significant:

1. Males have stronger or higher ACVII-A scores than females.
2. Older students tend to have higher career ACVII-A interest sub-scores and aggregate scores than younger students.
3. Students with parents in lower-socio-economic career fields tend to have higher ACVU-A scores than those with parents in the higher career fields, based on the Rowe index.
4. ACVII-A scores are higher for students with mothers working in the lower socio-economic level career fields. This may also mean housewives.
5. The intensity of one’s interest and general career motivation may be judged by the level of the raw score and observed by the aggregate/total score. For example, an individual with a Clerical Score of 25, has less interest in the clerical field than one with a score of 50, etc. Similarly, one may always assume that if the Clerical score is 50, it is only half of what it might be on the ACVII-A.
6. Mc Cally T-Scores are employed for the standardisation of each group’s peer congruence, determined by the entire sample for each school.
7. Normative data for 10th and llth grade students is different for males and females so different computed norms are used. Data is expressed in terms of a Mc Cafly T-Score with a Mean of 50 and a SD of 10. Scores range from 20 to 80 with 20 being low and 80 being high, in terms of interest. ACVH self-scores responses and standardises results through the software program so errors are eliminated in continuous data collection.
8. It should be noted that teenage interests tend to fluctuate and change with the fullness of time. As people mature their interests change. Career interest is particularly dynamic during the later years of secondary schooling. Thus, vocational interest appraisal should be an annual exercise during the last two years of secondary schooling at least and maybe, until the career interest of the individual stabilises, on an annual basis as well as later in adult life.
9. People frequently change jobs for many reasons but in particular, adults desire rehabilitation for retraining and reappraisal of their changed vocational choices, by necessity. Global and local economic climates also determine areas of general career path changes as we are seeing at the present time.
10. A principal components factor analysis with varimax rotations was accomplished for 140 cases of students taking both the (non-verbal) Geist Picture Interest Inventory and the Australian Computerised Interest Inventory. Twenty five independently organised factors were extracted and there was little agreement. In most cases no agreement was achieved between the two assessments in relation to the titles of the scores (comparing scores with similar titles). Individuals desiring copies of this data may write to the author (Geist and Costello, 1988).

Clearly, there is a statistically significant difference between scores for the adult population and the secondary school students, requiring desirable use of separate norms. The mean age for the adult population was 34.8, with a SD of 12.1; while the mean age for the secondary school population was 16.3, with a SD of 0.55. Sex differences (male/female) for both groups was about equally divided. From the TOTAL SCORE of ACVII-A, it may be seen that there is a statistically significant difference between the Secondary Student and Adult Groups.

The discriminant analysis shows that scores on the ACVII-A are much the same for persons involved; while scores for the adult group do not portray that same general commonness. Only 14 of the 142 secondary students scores were mistaken for adult group scores but 14 of the 53 adult scores resembled student group scores. This means that adult vocational interests are more like those of students on the ACVII-A than students are more like adults in their vocational interests.

The F-test in the discriminant analysis, like the t-test reported, discerned signifigantly between the male and female person in the adult sample. When one examines the accuracy of prediction of male and female subjects from the scores used in concert, these display an impressive record. Each of the 14 sub-scores on the ACVII-A obtained independence of organisation for the adult population. Five additional standardisation’s have been completed since the 1978 validation study presented at the 1989 Australian (Victorian) College of Education Annual Conference.

ACVII-A is the first Australian computerised vocational guidance instrument. ACVII-B is the world’s first computerised biofeedback vocational guidance instrument. When administered together, divergences and similarities are determined between verbal and non-verbal responses to derive a diagnostic assessment. A new technique of psychological assessment has evolved that introduces a new perspective and may plausibly replace many earlier pencil and paper tests (Costello, 1982 and 1987).

References

Cassel, R.N. (1978). Split brain functioning. Education. 99(1), 2-7.

Cassel, R.N., and Costello, B.R. (1989). Guided Imagery. Education. 110(1),40-49.

Costello, B.R. (19%). The Australian Computerised Biofeedback Vocational Interest Inventory ACVII (B): Statistical Validation. American Board of Media Psychotherapists Annual Convention, 1-3 June.

Cheetham, J., and Costello, B.R. (1979). Pureut Power. New York: MacMillan.

Edwards, B. (1979). Drawing on The Right Side of the Brain. Los Angeles, California: V.P. Turcher, Inc.