Holland's Hexagon Research Articles

Vocational Confidence and Personality in the Prediction of Occupational Group Membership

This study examined the relationships of vocational interests and self-efficacy expectations, or confidence, to personality, as measured by the Personal Styles scales of the Strong Interest Inventory. The study also examined the extent to which confidence and personality measures contributed incrementally to the prediction of occupational group membership. In a sample of 1,103 adults employed in 21 occupations representing the complete Holland hexagon, confidence–personality relationships were very similar to interest–personality relationships found in previous research. Discriminant analyses indicated that both personality and confidence contributed incrementally to the prediction of occupational group membership, although the most powerful single predictor set was 14 basic confidence dimensions (e.g., science, public speaking, and writing) extracted through principal components analysis. There were substantial differences across the 21 occupations in their predictability and in the extent to which they were differentiated by personality variables versus confidence dimensions. Implications for further work on the intersections of vocational interests, confidence, and personality are discussed.

Testing Holland's hexagon: Explanation and criticism

A description is given of Hubert and Arabie's test of whether an empirical matrix of correlations (between the six measures of vocational interests commonly abbreviated R, I, A, S, E, and C) supports Holland's hexagonal (circular order) model. The description makes clear that the test has severelimitations. Specifically, the circular ordering RIASEC is onlycompared with other circular orderings. Consequently, correlationmatrices arising from a model that is qualitatively different may berated very highly by Hubert and Arabie's test; several examples ofthis are given.

Measuring the Success of the Holland Hexagon

J. L. Holland's approach to personality (and careers that aresuitable for different personality types) involves scoring peopleon six personality measures and intercorrelating the six scores;there is a hypothesis about the relative sizes of the fifteencorrelations. In the present paper, some statistics are proposed fordescribing how well this hypothesis (and three variants of it) matches an observed correlation matrix. These statistics are analogousto a correlation coefficient. A variables-in-common model isgiven that justifies the most parsimonious of the hypotheses considered.

Basic structure of work-relevant abilities.

This study sought to determine whether the dimensions underlying a comprehensive set of 15 work-relevant abilities were similar to the Data/Ideas and Things/People Work Task Dimensions (D. J. Prediger, 1996) underlying J. L. Holland's (1997) hexagonal model of interest and occupational types. The work task dimensions and a general ability dimension served as factor targets in principal components analyses of ability self-estimates obtained from nationally representative and cross-sectional samples of 4,387 and 618 12th graders. The composition of the factors that were extracted corresponded to expectations based on the work task dimensions and Holland's hexagon. Implications for practice are noted. Study results also suggest the need for a new look at the structure of human intelligence.

Does Holland's Hexagon Travel Well?

John Holland's career theory has influenced career counselling for several decades. However, recent research has questioned the cross-cultural and gender structural equivalence of his theory. The present research examines whether 529 black South African disadvantaged students’ interest structures fit Holland's hexagonal model and whether such structures differ according to gender and socioeconomic status. The results indicate that the structure of interests of black adolescents does not provide an acceptable level of fit to Holland's hexagonal structure. This finding was evident across gender and socioeconomic status groups. There were also no within-group differences for gender and socioeconomic status. The implications of these findings for career practitioners who use Holland's measures are discussed.

Ellenore Flood's UNIACT Results

The considerations presented in this article apply to the use of scores from the Unisex Edition of the ACT Interest Inventory (UNIACT; Swaney, 1995) in the context of Ellenore Flood's circumstances. They address what we would consider if one of us were Ms. Flood's career counselor. However, they were written in a style appropriate for Ms. Flood's actual counselor. It is her counselor, not us, who will facilitate the counselor-client interactive process essential to decision-oriented, potentially life-affecting interpretations of assessment results (Chartrand, 1991; Healy, 1990). GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS UNIACT has several uses. We begin with general considerations regarding the circumstances surrounding this particular use of IACT. 1. The initial interview notes (provided elsewhere) indicate that Ms. Flood feels that in the next 4 months she must make a choice from among . . . four major (the presenting problem). The notes also provide some background on the bases for the career options she is considering. We believe it may be helpful for you to ask Ms. Flood if she has recently considered other options. If so, we suggest that you explore how the options were identified and the bases for ruling them out. 2. The interview notes indicate that, before contacting you, Ms. Flood talked with three career counselors, each of whom failed to help her clarify her choices and make a decision. If this was during the past 2 to 3 years, you may wish to discuss the timing, general purpose, and extent of the contacts, including what happened and how she felt about it. The counseling process and Ms. Flood may benefit from the discussion. 3. The interview notes state that Ms. Flood is anxious to make the right choice [italics added] . . [and] is trying to approach her next career move in a rational and logical manner. We suggest that you ask her to describe her criteria for a right or best choice (independent of choice content) and whether she wants to rethink the criteria (e.g., are noncognitive criteria being considered?). 4. The interview notes state that Ms. Flood knows that she has strong and almost equal interest in [Holland's, 1997] Enterprising, Artistic, and Social occupations-and she seems to value interesting work. Did her previous counselors help her inventory her other job values? That is, has she clarified and prioritized her feelings regarding desirable and undesirable attributes of occupations in addition to the work itself? For example, she says, could easily do marketing.... But I do not see myself doing that. Note her Enterprising and Social interests and help her explore why she has ruled out marketing. She says, love teaching.... [But] I have not felt settled for the last 4 years. Help her explore why. Ms. Flood's results for the Values Scale and Salience Inventory (provided elsewhere) may be more helpful than all six interest and skill assessments, combined. UNIACT-RELATED CONSIDERATIONS UNIACT is only available as part of more extensive assessment services (e.g., DISCOVER, the ACT). Interpretation specifics differ across these eight services. To make things workable, the other assessment instruments (e.g., ability tests) included in the services were not used in this project. Reports of results draw on UNIACT components common to the eight services. What you have for Ms. Flood is briefly described below. 1. In addition to norm-based stanine scores for UNIACT scales paralleling Holland's (1997) six interest types, you received a fourpage leaflet (A Guide to the World of Work) focusing on basic work tasks (see Item 2), the World-of-Work Map (Figure 1), and Ms. Flood's map regions. The empirically based World-of-Work Map, an extension of Holland's ( 1997) hexagon, can be used to link any set of Holland-type scores to occupational options (Prediger & Swaney, 1995). Holland's hexagon and its bipolar Data-Ideas and People-Things Work Task Dimensions provide the core of the map. …

Broadening the Use of Holland's Hexagon With Specific Implications for Career Counselors

This article offers a new mapping procedure—used in conjunction with Holland's (1985) hexagon—to help clients identify and explore occupational alternatives.

Relationships between Holland's vocational typology, Schein's career anchors and Myers—Briggs' types

The relationships between the variables measured by the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and ipsative scales measuring the concepts in Holland's theory of vocational personalities and Schein's theory of career anchors were investigated by analysing data from 1063 Norwegian adults. Three bipolar factors extracted from the vocational scales were in close agreement with the diagonal dimensions of Holland's hexagon model of the vocational categories. Four factors extracted from the anchor scales were interpreted as bipolar career anchor factors. Regression analysis, using MBTI variables as independent and vocational and career anchor factors as dependent variables, showed that extraversion–introversion predicted the enterprising–investigative factor, sensing–intuition predicted the conventional–artistic factor, and thinking–feeling predicted the realistic–social factor. The Myers–Briggs variables were not distinctly related to the career anchor variables.It is argued that the three‐factor structure of the vocational categories corresponds with Holland's hexagon model of these categories because preferential choice data tend to expand the hexagon to an octahedron.

Social skills of and social environments produced by different Holland types: A social perspective on person€nvironment fit models.

A critical aspect of the environment in person-environment models is the nature and density of the social interactions of the members who populate the environment. Because social types solve problems through social mechanisms, it was hypothesized that they would have greatest skills in social coping and that the further the Euclidean distance (in Holland's hexagon) from social, the lower the skill level in these social skills, but that there would be no differences among Holland types in skill level for problem-focused social skills. On the basis of an assessment of vocational interests and self-reported social skills of 134 undergraduates, this hypothesis was corroborated. Chemistry laboratory groups were qualitatively studied to describe the social interaction environment of persons with relative deficits in the social-coping skills. These chemists interacted often, enjoyed and benefited from the interactions, but constrained their social interactions to minimize the dependence on social-coping social skills.

Using UNIACT in a Comprehensive Approach to Assessment for Career Planning

The Unisex Edition of the ACT Interest Inventory (UNIACT; Swaney, 1995) is the chief component of a comprehensive, integrated approach to assessment for career planning and replanning. The World-of-Work Map (Prediger, 1976), an extension of Holland's hexagon (Holland, Whitney, Cole, & Richards, 1969), provides the basis for linking UNIACT results and results from 12 other, widely used interest inventories to occupational options and to results from assessments of work-relevant experiences, work-relevant abilities, and job values. A case study illustrates the interpretation of Holland-type interests in the context of experiences, abilities, job values, and current occupational choice. Guidelines followed in the development of UNIACT's interpretation procedure are explained, and issues related to interest inventory response style and sex fairness are addressed. UNIACT's validity data, which include three-letter (Holland) codes for 648 career groups and results from studies supporting the hexagon's Data/Ideas and Things/People Work Task Dimensions, are summarized.

Extending Holland's Hexagon: Procedures, Counseling Applications, and Research

Since its introduction nearly 25 years ago, Holland's (1985) hexagon has remained in skeletal form. The hexagon is used to depict similarities and differences among occupations—but only six general types of occupations. The authors show in this article how to extend the basic concepts embodied in the hexagon. Procedures for locating counselees and occupations on the hexagon are illustrated. These procedures, which are compatible with scores from a wide variety of assessment instruments, can help counselees identify and explore occupational options. The authors also report research on the hexagon locations of 27 career groups.

Who claims Holland's hexagon is perfect?

This paper responds to seven articles containing reactions to Prediger and Vansickle (1992). The paper explains why our occupational mapping procedure and Hexagon Congruence Index are not dependent on a perfect hexagon. Instead, they provide a way to test Holland's hexagonal model. Additional misconceptions offered by Holland and Gottfredson (1992) are addressed. We interpret the other reactors as generally agreeing that a fleshed-out hexagon has considerable potential for depicting similarities and differences among specific occupations—not just Holland's six RIASEC types. In response to three reactors, we describe how the mapping procedure can be used to see whether Holland's hexagon applies to traits other than vocational interests (e.g., abilities). Before diverting attention to a diffuse list of activities, as Holland and Gottfredson suggest, we recommend that the profession stalk the perfect hexagon (“The Holyhex”) and, if the data so indicate, develop a more valid and useful alternative.

Locating occupations on Holland's hexagon: Beyond RIASEC

This paper illustrates a procedure for using the interest scores of occupational group members to locate occupations on Holland's hexagon. The procedure locates occupations throughout the hexagon—not just at six points (R, I, A, S, E, C). Score profiles for Holland's six types were obtained approximately 8 years prior to determining the occupations of 3612 4-year college alumni. The hexagon locations of 51 occupations pursued by these alumni were determined through the application of hexagon-based weights to their score profiles. The weights convert the profiles to scores on the Data/Ideas and Things/People work task dimensions that underlie the hexagon. Several applications of hexagon locations are described, including a Hexagon Congruence Index that reports person-occupation congruence on a scale anchored to the hexagon. The Hexagon Congruence Index can be used with 6-score profiles of Holland's types, 3-letter codes, 2-letter codes, high-point codes, or any combination of these reporting procedures.

Work activity and career goals in Holland's and Schein's theories of vocational personalities and career anchors

Two taxonomic theories describing the relationship between people and the world of work were investigated. Holland's and Schein's vocational and career concepts were conceived of as categories of preferential decisions about work and career goals, respectively. Ipsative scales were developed for each category set, and preferential choice data were obtained from 725 Norwegian adults. Relations within and between the two sets of categories were investigated by factor analysis. Three factors extracted from the vocational scales were in close agreement with the diagonal dimensions in Holland's hexagon model of the vocational categories. Four factors were extracted from the career scales. Both the correlations between the scales and the factor correlations indicated that the vocational and career categories are rather distinct domains. Career goals cannot be derived from assessment of vocational personalities, and vice versa. However, Holland's Enterprising and Conventional vocational categories correlated with different sets of career goal categories, those having to do with preferences for challenge and excitement, and security and vocational stability, respectively. More extensive behavioral specifications of the career anchors are needed for future research on the generality of the concepts and their interactions with other concepts in determining dimensions of people-work relationships.

Dimensions underlying Holland's hexagon: Missing link between interests and occupations?

Holland uses a hexagon to model relationships among his six types of vocational interests. This paper provides empirical evidence regarding the nature of the interest dimensions underlying the hexagon. Two studies are reported. Study 1 examines the extent to which two theory-based dimensions—data/ideas and things/people—fit 27 sets of intercorrelations for Holland's types. Three of the data sets involve the mean scores of career groups (total of 228 groups and 35,060 individuals); 24 involve the scores for individuals (total of 11,275). Study 2 explores the heuristic value of the data/ideas and things/people dimensions by determining whether they contribute to the understanding of why interest inventories work. Two data sets covering a total of 563 occupations are used to calculate correlations between the vocational interests of persons and the tasks which characterize the persons' occupations. Each occupation's principal work tasks are determined from job analysis data obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor. Study 1 results provide substantial support for the theory-based dimensions. Study 2 results suggest that interest inventories “work” primarily because they tap activity preferences which parallel work tasks. Counseling and research applications of the data/ideas and things/people dimensions are suggested and implications for interest assessment are noted.