THE STRUCTURE OF VOCATIONAL INTERESTS FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN COLLEGE-STUDENTS

The purpose of the present study was to examine the structure underlying the measured interests of African-American college students. The Strong Interest Inventory (SII; Hansen & Campbell, 1985) was administered to 357 subjects (189 females and 168 males). Intercorrelations among the General Occupational Theme (GOT) scales were (a) compared to correlations computed in the SII reference groups and (b) subjected to a nonmetric multidimensional scaling analysis (MDS) to examine the configuration of the RIASEC scales in a two-dimensional space. MDS stimulus coordinates then were used to examine distances predicted by the hexagonal structure of Holland's (1985) model. Results indicated support for the validity of Holland's (1985) model. © 1992.