Cross-cultural structural equivalence of RIASEC models and measures

A structural meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the fit of J. L. Holland's (1985a) circular order model, I. Gati's (1982) three-group partition, and an alternative three-class partition on vocational interest correlation matrices drawn from the cross-cultural literature. The randomization test of hypothesized order relations (L. Hubert & P. Arabie, 1987) was used to evaluate the model fit for 20 U.S. ethnic matrices, 76 international matrices (representing 18 countries), and a U.S. benchmark sample of 73 matrices. The cross-culture structural equivalence of Holland's circular order model was not supported. Both Gati's partition and the alternative partition fit the U.S. benchmark and international samples equally well. None of the 3 models were found to be an adequate representation of the structure of vocational interests for U.S. ethnic samples.