Validity of the Strong Interest Inventory and Skills Confidence Inventory With Mexican American High School Students

Abstract

The structural and concurrent validity of the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) and Skills Confidence Inventory (SCI) was explored with a sample of 487 Mexican American high school students, and findings were compared with normative samples of the SII and SCI. Holland’s (1997) structure was evaluated using circular unidimensional scaling. The hypothesized RIASEC order was supported for general occupational theme (GOT) scores of the SII with female students but not for male students or for general confidence theme (GCT) scores of the SCI with both genders. The model fit for both measures was poor compared with results obtained with reference samples. Additional results supported the concurrent validity of GOT to GCT and both GOT and GCT scores to Holland codes for expressed occupational aspirations. Gender differences were found on four of the six GOTs and three of the six GCTs. Implications for career-related interest and self-efficacy assessment with Mexican American high school students are discussed.

The State of SCCT Research in Relation to Social Class

“…Although SCCT posits positive direct relations from self-efficacy and outcome expectations to interests, previous research with low-income samples has only examined the path between self-efficacy and interests. These findings suggest that career selfefficacy had strong positive associations with career interests in the domains of nontraditional careers for women (Flores & O'Brien, 2002), prestigious careers (Scheuermann et al, 2014), and in general, across all six Holland domains (Flores et al, 2010;Flores, Spanierman, Armstrong, & Velez, 2006;Jackson, Potere, & Brobst, 2006). The exception was found in Turner and Lapan's (2003) investigation with Native American middle school students in that small significant relations were found among selfefficacy and interest in the realistic, investigative, artistic, social, and enterprising domains.…”

Structural Validity of Holland’s Circumplex Model of Vocational Personality Types in Africa

“…CI values ranging from .56 (Flores et al, 2006) to .97 (Kantamneni, 2014) have been found for the GOT across different U.S. sample groups. Flores et al (2006) reported CI values of .94 (women) and .86 (men) for the SII reference sample. In an unpublished report, Morgan (2015) reported a CI value of .86 for South African data.…”

“…There is much evidence supporting the construct validity of the GOT in the U.S. (Flores, Spanierman, Armstrong, & Velez, 2006; Fouad & Mohler, 2004; Kantamneni, 2014; Kantamneni & Fouad, 2013; Oliver & Waehler, 2005; Pirutinsky, 2013). CI values ranging from .56 (Flores et al, 2006) to .97 (Kantamneni, 2014) have been found for the GOT across different U.S. sample groups. Flores et al (2006) reported CI values of .94 (women) and .86 (men) for the SII reference sample.…”

Development and Outcomes from a Translational Science Curriculum from Pre-Collegiate Students

“…This survey was based on the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) (Lent, 2004;Lent et al, 1994). The SCCT is an established survey model used as a framework for studying interactive learning experiences that influence career development and academ-ics in both high school and college (Flores, 2006;Kier et al, 2014). The SCCT evaluates six key variables that are associated with career development: (1) interest (2) expectations (3) support (4) goal (5) efficacy (6) disposition, defined as the tendency to experience a positive or negative effect (Lent and Steven, 2000).…”