Interest Inventory

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The PSS Central Institute of Vocational Education (PSSCIVE), a constituent unit of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has developed this Skill based Aptitude assessment tool. The tool has been designed and developed for the students of Class X by group of experts on the behest of the Ministry of Education, Government of India.

The students after completing the upper primary stage should be provided opportunity to explore the various vocational opportunities in the world of work and relate their interests and aptitude with the occupations. The decision of the students in making choice of the subjects is influenced by their interests, attitudes, motivation, personality and aptitude.

The tool comprises of questions to be answered by the students of Class X, which will help them to know their interest and aptitude to choose a vocational subject or a vocation as a career. The details about use of tool, dimensions measured in the tool, administration and scoring and the use of tool scores are available online. The outcome of the assessment should not be utilized for imposing the decision on the students regarding the choice of vocational courses or other subjects. Teachers and Counsellors can utilize the outcomes of the test to guide the students.

This test is a battery of two assessments-

• Part 1- Interest Inventory
• Part 2- Aptitude Test

Part-1- Interest Inventory-

This test will help you identify your interests and the fields that match them. The result of the test provides information related to your personality traits and personal interests. It will also help you to make an informed choice of the vocational subject or a vocation as a career.

Time Limit- No time limit.

Part-2 - Aptitude Test

This aptitude test will help you assess your abilities. It will give you a better understanding of yourselves. It is designed to reveal your strengths and weaknesses and give you a better understanding of our overall abilities, and also highlight your hidden talents.

Aptitude test covers general mental abilities like abstract reasoning, perceptual ability, clarity of thinking, etc. which assess specific abilities and fitness of the individual for a particular occupation.

Total Time Limit- 60 Mins/1 hour

Let us now familiarise ourselves with some of the terms which we will be using here

• 1. Activity: A set of tasks and duties performed or meant to be performed by one or more persons.
• 2. Aptitude: The most common definition of aptitude involves an innate ability to perform an activity or task. It is, in essence, the predisposition we all come into the world with to do well in certain areas and maybe not so well in others.
• 3. Career: An occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress.
• 4. Interest: It is something that a person enjoys learning about or doing.
• 5. Job: The work one does to earn money.
• 6. Job activities: These are the tasks employees must complete in order for a business or organization to operate successfully.
• 7. Job description: :: It is a formal account of an employee's responsibilities.
• 8. Occupation: Something that one spends one's time on, such as a job or a hobby.
• 9. Vocation: It is an occupation to which a person is especially drawn or for which they are suited, trained, or qualified
• 10. Vocational ability: It refers to what a person can do or has the potential to do in the future.
• 11. Vocational identity: It refers to how clear and stable a person's current and future goals are.
• 12. Vocational interest: It refers to the activities or subjects that a person prefers.
• 13. Work: It refers to general efforts and activities done to accomplish a goal.

Part-1- Interest Inventory-

Interest is something that a person enjoys learning about or doing it. Interests are very much linked with our wants, motives, and basic needs. It also indicates like or dislike for something or the job responsibilities associated with an occupation. It helps a person to realize the goals.

Both interests and personality traits are motivational processes that influence individual behaviour with respect to choices, inclusive of tasks or activities in which they wish to engage. During adolescence, interests, capacities and values develop which are all aspects of a career, but career choice is still based on interests and parental influence.

Pursuing one's interest is always satisfying. You might be interested in doing something in life. For example, becoming a photographer, a musician, a tour guide, an animator, an automotive engineer, a space scientist, a progressive farmer, etc. If you are interested in doing certain activities, which are associated with some occupations, then it is the right time that you assess your interests and abilities to make a "career choice". As a student, you need to explore the various vocational opportunities in the world of work and relate your interests with the various occupations available in the world of work. Your decision in making choice of the subjects is influenced by your interests, attitudes, motivation, personality and aptitude.

Interest Inventory is a guidance instrument designed to assess your interests through an instrument comprising of items to be answered by you. It will help you to know your vocational interest and to choose a vocational subject or a vocation as a career. This assessment will measure your interest and personality traits.

This Interest Inventory instrument has been developed by a group of experts to help students identify their interests and the fields that match them. It is an inventory which will be used to help students identify their interests and personality and match them with the various disciplines or fields. The inventory comprises of questions to be answered by the students of Grade 10, which will help them to know their interests and to choose a vocational subject or a vocation as a career. It provides information related to the occupational interests of the students and should be taken up voluntarily by students. Another factor that influences the choice of career is the "personality". Personality tests measure aspects of an individual's personality that are relevant to job performance, including interaction style and behavioural tendencies. However, the correlations of interests with personality characteristics are not very strong, and an individual's personality gives only a rough guide as to his or her pattern of vocational interests.

According to John L Holland (1997), personality in most persons can be categorized as one of the following six types:

• Realistic (R) : People with this type of personality like working with hands, learning new things, dealing with facts and figures. For example; Building and Construction, Private Security are some sectors these people have an interest in.
• Investigative (I) : People with this type of personality prefer to work with "data". They generally like to think and observe, rather than act, organize and understand information. For example; Baking, Financial services and Insurance, IT-ITES are some sectors these people have an interest in.
• Artistic (A) : People with this type of personality prefer to work with "ideas" and are more creative in their approach. They tend to be more open, original, perceptive, sensitive, independent and emotional. They generally oppose structures and rules but enjoy involving people with physical skills. For example; Media and Entertainment, Beauty and Wellness are some sectors these people have an interest in.
• Social (S) : People with this type of personality prefer to work with "people". They would generally like to seek close relationships with other people. For example; Health care, Tourism and Hospitality are some sectors these people have an interest in.
• Enterprising (E) : People with this type of personality prefer to work with people and data. They use their speaking skill in leading or persuading others. They value reputation, power, money and status. For example, Organized Retail, Tourism and Hospitality are some sectors these people have an interest in.
• Conventional (C) :: People with this type of personality prefer to work with data and they like rules and regulations, structure and order. They also place value on reputation, power, or status. For example, Logistics, Telecom, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance are some sectors these people have an interest in.

Part-2 , Aptitude Test-

The most common definition of aptitude involves an innate ability to perform an activity or task. It is, in essence, the predisposition we all come into the world with to do well in certain areas and maybe not so well in others.

Although aptitude is considered as an inborn tendency but environment also plays a significant role in the development of aptitude. An individual’s performance on a task depends on intrinsic factors such as personality characteristics, motivation, ability, etc. and on extrinsic factors such as cultural exposures, environment stimulation, family environment, quality of education, etc. For example, a person has the ability to be an engineer but due to lack of support from the school and home environment he/she may not be able to explore this occupation and may not get appropriate training in the same field. As a result, despite having an aptitude a person may not get supportive environment/proper training in that area.

This aptitude test is designed by experts to assess the abilities of an individual. Aptitude tests give a better understanding of one selves; it guides with intelligence an individual possess. It is designed to reveal strengths and weaknesses and give a better understanding of overall abilities, and also highlight hidden talents. This is important for professional development.

Earlier student’s mental ability was assessed using intelligence tests, but it did not provide any valid evidence regarding presence or absence of specific abilities and fitness of the individual for a particular occupation. But the present Aptitude test covers general mental abilities like abstract reasoning, perceptual ability, clarity of thinking, etc.

This aptitude test is divided into 7 subtests:

This aptitude test is divided into 7 subtests:

• Verbal Aptitude : is related to the comprehension of words and ideas, or a person’s ability to understand written language.
• Numerical Aptitude : is related to facility in manipulating numbers quickly and accurately, and an overall fluency in fundamental number operations.
• Mechanical Aptitude : is related to a person’s ability to understand and apply mechanical concepts and principles to solve problems.
• Perceptual Aptitude : is a speed accuracy test, which is related to the ability to see quickly a whole stimulus when parts of it are missing.
• Spatial Aptitude : is related to the capacity to mentally manipulate actual materials through imagining, by following the orientation of figures when their position in a plane or space is altered.
• Clerical Aptitude : is related to making rapid evaluations of features of visual stimuli. It helps to assesses how the students rapidly compare the paired groups of letters or numbers and identify the similarity or differences.
• Reasoning Aptitude : is related to person’s ability to apply and process and reason from some specific information to a general principle.

The details about the use of SBAT, dimensions measured in this test, administration and scoring and the use inventory scores are available online. The outcome of the test should not be utilized for imposing the decision on the students regarding the choice of vocational courses or other subjects.

Teachers and Counsellors can utilize the outcomes of the inventory to guide the students. The outcome of the inventory should not be utilized for imposing the decision on the students regarding the choice of vocational courses or other subjects.

Items were constructed related to the six dimensions of Holland RIASEC Model.

According to John L Holland (1997), personality in most persons can be categorized as one of the following six types:

• Realistic : Items under this dimension are designed to check the realistic nature of the students.
• Investigative :Items under this dimension are designed to check the investigative nature of the students.
• Artistic : - Items under this dimension are designed to check the artistic nature of the students.
• Social : Items under this dimension are designed to check the social nature of the students.
• Enterprising : Items under this dimension are designed to check the enterprising nature of the students.
• Conventional :Items under this dimension are designed to check the conventional nature of the students.

The principles that were followed in the construction of items are as follows:

Items were to be developed for all the six dimensions i.e. RIASEC.

• The items have to be clearly identified with the appropriate dimension and the difficulty level was average.
• The items have to be independent of all other dimensions except the one for which they were constructed.
• The number of the items have to be sufficient in numbers to make a rigorous selection using expert opinion as well as empirical analysis (item difficulty and discrimination index).

100 (50 males and 50 females) school students drawn from rural and urban areas of Bhopal were selected for the survey. The age of students ranged from 13 to 15 years, with a mean age of 13.5 years. The main objective of the pilot survey was to know:

• Whether the items elicit desired responses
• Whether the items elicit varied responses
• Whether the terminology and language are understood by the students taking the test.

Based on the findings of the pilot testing some changes were made in the general instructions and language of the items.

• Realistic : Items under this dimension are designed to check the realistic nature of the students.
• Investigative :Items under this dimension are designed to check the investigative nature of the students.
• Artistic : - Items under this dimension are designed to check the artistic nature of the students.
• Social : Items under this dimension are designed to check the social nature of the students.
• Enterprising : Items under this dimension are designed to check the enterprising nature of the students.
• Conventional :Items under this dimension are designed to check the conventional nature of the students.

The principles that were followed in the construction of items are as follows:

Items were to be developed for all the six dimensions i.e. RIASEC.

Item Analysis

For each respondent, the total of all the items (answer) is calculated. This total is the sum of answers of all the items of an inventory for each respondent. In other words, this total contains the contribution of all items of each respondent. This statement generates a total of 90 items for each respondent. Now there are one hundred twenty-one variables – 1 to 90 is the statements and the last (91st) is the total. Calculated correlation coefficients of the total with each item. The non-significant correlation coefficients of the items were identified by manual checking. It was revealed that these items do not contribute significantly to the total. In other words, these items are not reliable and deleted from the inventory. Finally, out of total 90 items, only 78 items were retained and the remaining 12 items were deleted.

Scoring

The inventory is scored with the help of a vocational interest inventory manual. In the present inventory only two alternative responses have been given to each statement i.e. "Like" and "Dislike".

The vocational interest inventory has 78 items. Every item is to be responded to in "Like" and "Dislike". There is no other alternative. Every "Like" response is assigned 1 mark and every "Dislike" is assigned 0 marks. The sum of marks is obtained for the entire inventory. In the present study vocational interest is indicated by the total score obtained by the students on the vocational interest inventory.

The scores for each area are collected separately and the overall total is taken as the vocational interest score of the student. The student with high scores in this inventory is considered to have a high level of vocational interest and vice versa. The maximum vocational interest score of the vocational interest inventory was 13 and the minimum score was one. The Median value was calculated to put a demarcation line between highly interested and poorly interested students The vocational interest classification of students based on their respective scores are given below:

Scores 1 – 3 below Average Scores 4 - 7 Average Scores 8 – 11 above Average Scores 12 – 13 High

Reliability of the Vocational Interest Inventory

After deleting the item (s) with the help of frequency distribution and the total-item correlation method, the remaining items are subjected to check the reliability of the scale as a whole.

Split Half Reliability

This method checks the reliability of the inventory as a whole. A total of two halves are computed. In the first half, the total of all the odd items is calculated for each respondent, and in the second half, the total of the even item is calculated.

The correlation coefficient of these two variables, ODD TOTAL and EVEN TOTAL is calculated with the help of the Pearson correlation method. The value of the correlation coefficient comes more than .70, the inventory is called reliable, otherwise, the inventory is less reliable, and the inventory does not indicate the true picture of the measurement. The higher the value of the correlation coefficient, the more will be the reliability of the inventory.

The split-half reliability of the Vocational Interest Inventory was calculated for both the male and female students. The reliability of inventory was computed by applying the 'odd and even' procedure. The scores of 39 odds and 39 even items for the entire vocational interest inventory were correlated by using the product-moment method. The obtained reliability coefficient is given in the following table:

Test/Retest Reliability

According to this method the inventory is administered at two points of times to the respondents. These two points means test the inventory and again retest it on the same respondents. The results of measurement were almost the same at two points of time. It was concluded that inventory is reliable.

There are seventy-eight items of the inventory (Q1 TO Q 78) and data were collected for the test from 100 respondents. Then the data were again collected with the same inventory from the same respondents at retest time (after five weeks’ gap). The data were entered into the computer in Excel. The seventy-eight questions have been labelled as Q 1 to Q 78 at a test and the names of the questions have been given as QR 1 to QR 78. The test-retest reliability of the inventory was determined by the 'test re-test reliability method' after a lapse of five weeks. The obtained reliability quotient was .74.

Validity of the Vocational Interest Inventory

Content Validity:

The contents of items of each area were balanced representations. This means each area of the inventory has almost a similar number of items or questions. The contents of the inventory were related to the objectives of the inventory. This means all the items measure a common element. The content validity has moderate to high levels of internal consistency. All the items have a high level of correlation among themselves. The degree of content validity is mainly a criterion that all the items are complete and representative. The inventory developers observed that all items of an area are logically related.

Expert Validity:

Copy of the inventory was sent to seven professional experts (psychologists, counsellors, educationists, psychometricians) along with the objectives of the inventory with a request to check the validity of the inventory. Five out of seven professional experts expressed consensus and validity is confirmed. The majority of professional experts give some suggestions, and these were incorporated in the inventory and send the same to the professional experts for seeking their final opinion on the validity.

Face validity:

Face validity is the logical link between the items and the objectives of the inventory. It means each question of the inventory is related to the objectives of the inventory. The inventory developers assessed the face validity of the present inventory.