Structure of vocational interests in Serbia: Evaluation of the spherical model

Abstract

To explore the structure of vocational interests in Serbia, 1063 participants of various age, education and gender completed the Serbian version of the Personal Globe Inventory [PGI, Tracey, T. (2002). Personal Globe Inventory: Measurement of the spherical model of interests and competence beliefs. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 6, 113–172]. The fit of Tracey’s octagonal and spherical models to the structure of correlations between Tracey’s eight and 18 type scales was evaluated, as was the fit of Holland’s hexagonal, Gati’s, Rounds–Tracey’s and Liu–Rounds’ models to the structure of correlations between RIASEC scales. Randomization test of hypothetical orders, multidimensional scaling with fixed coordinates and Myors’ test were used to assess the fit of models to the data. The results showed good fit of Tracey’s octagonal and spherical models to the data. Holland’s hexagonal model also fit the data very well, but the fit of Gati’s, Rounds–Tracey’s and Liu–Rounds’ models of relations between RIASEC types was either nonsignificant or very low.