Interpreting Interest Inventories: A Case Example

Abstract

Interest inventory interpretation is one of the most frequently used interventions in career counseling. As a beginning counselor, found myself astounded by the ability of my senior colleagues to describe and understand nuances of an individual's behavior just from examining her or his interest inventory profile. As worked to develop skill at inventory interpretation, repeatedly read a book edited by Donald Zytowski (1973). What made this book so useful was chapter 9, Illustrative Interpretations of Inventories, which contained examples of interest inventory developers interpreting the profiles of three clients. Studying the text of their interpretations allowed readers to scrutinize how highly skilled practitioners interpreted interest profiles. This special section of The Career Development Quarterly is an attempt to emulate Zytowski's classic book by having expert career counselors interpret their favorite interest inventories. In consultation with Arnold Spokane, chose to include five widely used interest inventories. Then we identified career counselors who each use one of these inventories with great success and recruited them to do a blind interpretation of that inventory. The inventories and their interpreters include: Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (Kathleen Boggs), Kuder Occupational Interest Survey (Donald Zytowski), SelfDirected Search (Jack Rayman), Strong Interest Inventory (Jeffrey Prince), and the Unisex Edition of the ACT Interest Inventory (Dale Prediger & Edward Schmertz). In addition, Linda Subich agreed to interpret the Skills Confidence Inventory, an optional part of the Strong Interest Inventory, and Paul Hartung agreed to interpret the Salience Inventory and the Values Scale, two inventories that some counselors use in conjunction with interest inventories (Osborne, Brown, Niles, & Miner, 1997). Each of these career counselors received a summary of the initial interview with an actual client who had recently sought career counseling, Ellenore Flood (a pseudonym). Ms. Flood volunteered to participate in this project and made it possible by responding to all of the inventories, granting permission to use the summary of her initial interview, which she edited, providing copies of her inventory results to the authors of the articles, and writing a response to their interpretations of her inventory results. In addition to Ms. Flood's response, Arnold Spokane contributed an article that examines the similarities and differences in the inventories and their interpretations. The authors hope that this special section of the Quarterly will allow readers to learn more about interest inventory interpretation. We think it provides a unique opportunity to examine how five inventories profile the interests of a single client. What follows is the summary of the initial interview that was given to the article authors. The only other information they received about Ms. Flood was the profile for the particular interest inventory that they interpreted. ELLENORE FLOOD: SUMMARY OF THE INITIAL INTERVIEW Ellenore Flood is a 29-year-old, White woman who works as a high school teacher of English and French. At the beginning of her interview, she asked the career counselor to Help me sort out all of the things I've got going right now-job possibilities, making decisions, focusing. Ellenore thought that within 4 months, she had to choose from four career options: renewing her teaching contract, applying for a teaching position at an American school in Italy, beginning a doctoral program, or taking a marketing job in the European office of a former employer. Each alternative included a specific prospective position for which Ellenore was well-qualified. Faced with so many options, Ellenore said, I can't decide. I'm treading water. The need to choose arose because Ellenore had just ended a 3-year relationship with her boyfriend. She could not afford to continue in her position as a high school teacher because her monthly bills exceeded her pay. …