Assessment of Career Interests

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Assessment ofCareer Interests
FREDERICK T.L. LEONG, WEIQIAO FAN, AND XIAOLUZHOU
T H E OR E T I C A L
FRAMEWORK:CULTURAL
VALIDITY AND CULTURAL
SPECIFICITY
In a chapter for the Handbook of Vocational Psy-
chology (Walsh & Osipow, 1995), Leong and Brown
(1995) classified the theoretical advances in cross-
cultural career research as represented by exami-
nations of cultural validity and cultural specificity.
They argued that these two dimensions could serve
as components of a unifying theoretical framework
for cross- cultural career development research.
According to Leong and Brown, cultural validity is
concerned with the validity of theories and mod-
els across other cultures in terms of the construct,
concurrent, and predictive validities of these mod-
els for culturally different individuals. Specifically,
do the relevant constructs have the same meaning
across cultures? Are the predicted consequences of
certain behaviors or cognitions the same for Greeks
as for Canadians, or other populations? As a more
specific example, Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994)
argued that self- efficacy mediates the relationship
between career interest and choice; is the same true
for His panics? Cultural specificity, on the ot her hand,
is concerned with concepts, constructs, and models
that are specific to certain cultural groups in terms
of their role in explaining and predicting behavior
(e.g., what effect does filial piety have on the career
choices of Chinese?).
According to Leong and Hardin (2002),
culture- specific variables in vocational psychology
can ser ve two functions. First, they can be usef ul in
filling in the cultural gaps in Western- based mod-
els of career psychology. For this function, these
culture- specific constructs are believed to provide
incremental validity to the understanding and pre-
diction of vocational behavior among culturally
different populations. Second, culture- specific
variables, independent of Western models, can be
useful variables for understanding the career psy-
chology of indigenous populations independent of
their references to US white European American
samples. For this function, these culture- specific
variables can serve as competing explanatory mod-
els to the Western- based models that are currently
dominant in vocational psycholog y.
As Leong and Brown (1995) pointed out, it is
the integration of cultural validity and these cul-
tural specificity approaches that will best advance
our knowledge of the career psychology of clients
in varying cultures. The basic premise of Leong
and Brown’s (1995) framework is that research that
emphasizes cultural validity at the expense of cul-
tural specificity addresses only half of the problem.
Conversely, relying solely on cultural specificity
studies would be to assume without empirical
research that Western- oriented career theories
and models would not work for a particular sample
in a specific countr y.
In this chapter, we propose that this framework
of cultural validity and cultural specificity delin-
eated by Leong and Brown (1995) can be used to
provide a critical review of cross- cultural studies of
career interests and their measurement.
WESTERN MODELS
ANDMEASURES
In articulating the interrelated themes of cultural
validity and cultural specificity approaches in
vocational psychology research, Leong and Brown
(1995) discussed the biases in existing theoreti-
cal models. The Eurocentric biases in vocational
psychology had made Western models of career
development the norm for the f ield, while the expe-
riences and circumstances of an increasing diverse
population were being ignored. Leong and Brown
(1995) articulated four major and interrelated
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Assessment of Career Interests 
criticisms of these dominant Western career theo-
ries: (1)they are based upon a restricted range of
persons; (2)they are based upon assumptions of
limited scope; (3)when cross- cultural perspectives
are introduced, they confuse or inappropriately
define terms such as race, ethnicity, and minority;
and (4) they tend to ignore or limitedly address
the sociopolitical, socioeconomic, social psycho-
logical, and sociocultural realities of cross- cultural
individuals.
Leong and Brown (1995) cited the extant litera-
ture to support their criticism that most theories of
career development were developed from research
on primarily white, middle- class males. Indeed,
more recent studies have only confirmed these
observations. For example, in a highly cited article
in Behavioral and Brain Sciences further confirm-
ing this bias, Henreich, Heine, and Norenzayan
(2010) noted that “behavioral scientists routinely
publish broad claims about human psychology
and behavior in the world’s top journals based on
samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated,
Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD)
societies” (p.61), founded on an assumption of uni-
versality or limited cultural variation. Based on a
comparative analysis of databases from across the
behavioral sciences, they found that there is sub-
stantial variability in results across populations.
Furthermore, the WEIR D populations that domi-
nate our journals are in fact particularly unusual
compared with the rest of the species frequent
outliers.
From Super’s (1990) career development
theory to Holland’s (1985) person- environment
theory, culture has tended to be either minimized
or ignored. Based on white European American
samples from the middle class that dominated our
colleges and universities, these theories have been
the foundation for the practice of career assess-
ment and career counseling for the last 100years,
dating back to Parson’s (1909) work. Only recently
has there been increasing attention to the cul-
tural validity of these models to racial and ethnic
minorities in the United States (Leong & Flores,
2013; Leong, Hartung, & Pearce, 2014)and cross-
cultural samples from other countries (Arulmani,
Bakshi, Leong & Watts,2014).
In an article discussing cross- cultural issues
in personality and career assessment, Marsella
and Leong (1995) noted the dangers of ethnocen-
trism and the importance of recognizing the social
constructivism perspective in assessment. They
described the problems of errors of commission
and errors of omission in such assessments, which
are both born of ethnocentrism. The latter, errors
of omission, is related to our concept of cultural
specificity, where culture- specific mechanisms
or predictors that inf luence of career develop-
ment of culturally diverse samples are ignored or
minimized. Errors of commission are similar to
Henreich e tal.’s (2010) observation s about WEI RD
science, whereby we erroneously assume a univer-
sality of our models and measures and apply them
indiscriminately across other groups and cultures.
In the field of cross- cultural psychology, these
errors are referred to as “imposed etics,” whereby
we ethnocentrically assume that our experiences
and our behaviors are the universal norm (an etic
is a universal principle of behavior) and therefore
applicable to all others.
CULTURAL VALIDITY
STUDIES
Based on those important theoretical models and
the corresponding measures, the cultural validity
of the career interest construct has been examined
across different cultures. According to Leong and
Brown (1995), “cultural validity is concerned with
the construct, concurrent, and predictive valid-
ity of theories and models across other cultures”
(p.14). Afew empirical studies have explored the
concurrent validities of career interest models or
measures (Dolliver & Worthington, 1981; Knapp-
Lee, Michael, & Grutter, 1984; Omizo & Michael,
1983). For example, with a diverse Chinese sample
of 2,567 high school and college students, concur-
rent validity of Holland’s hexagon model from the
Personal Globe Inventory Short (PGI- S; Tracey,
2010)was examined as it covaried with the Self-
Directed Search (SDS; Holland, 1971) (Zhang
etal., 2013). We mainly review construct validity
and predictive validity of theories and models in
this section.
Construct Validity ofCareer Interest
Structural validity is a critical component of con-
struct validity, and it is beneficial to determine that
the concept ually disti nct elements of a model relate
to one another in a manner consistent with theory.
Due to limited samples and inconsistent methodol-
ogy, the literature on this subject is equivocal (e.g.,
Glidden- Tracey & Parraga, 1996; Hedrih, 2008).
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However, many empirical studies still provided
abunda nt evidence for suppor ting str uctura l validi-
ties of those popular career models a nd measures in
the literature.
Beginning with E. K. Strong’s introduction of
the Strong Vocational Interest Bank in the 1920s,
the study of vocational interests has been driven
by practical measurement concerns. However,
interest literature since the 1970s has primarily
used Holland’s (1985) RIASEC model to organize
research results. Therefore, the construct valid-
ity of Holland’s (1985) structural formulations of
interests was well investigated across cultures. In
addition, several other interest models and the cor-
responding measuring instruments, such as Roe’s
(1956) interest model and Gati’s (1979) hierarchi-
cal model, were demonstrated.
First , Holland ’s (1985) RI ASEC model w as well
supported by resea rch on US ethnic g roups (Gupta,
2009; Kantamneni, 2014; Kantamneni & Fouad,
2011; Lunneborg, 1977; Swanson, 1992). Those
empirical studies generally employed the follow-
ing measures, such as the revised Unisex Edition
of the ACT Interest Inventory (UNIACT; Swaney,
1995), the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI;
Holland, 1985), the Strong- Campbell Interest
Inventory (SCII; Campbell, 1974), and the 2005
Strong Interest Inventory (SII; Strong, 2005).
These career interest measures were devel-
oped based on Holland’s (1985) big- six circular
interestmodel.
For instance, with the revised Unisex Edition
of the ACT Interest Inventory (UNIACT; Swaney,
1995), Day and Rounds (1998), and Day, Rounds,
and Swaney (1998) examined the universality of
vocational interest structure among American
racial and ethnic minorities (African Americans,
Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native
Americans, and Caucasians), separated by sex.
The participants were college- bound persons. The
results indicated that Holland’s (1985) model ade-
quately represents the interest structures of both
sexes in all the diverse sample groups.
Similarly, the results of construct validity
in middle school students were strongly sup-
ported. Davison Avilés and Spokane (1999)
investigated the vocational interests of Hispanic,
African American, and white middle school stu-
dents through the SII. With the exception of the
Conventional theme, there were no significant
differences on any of the General Occupational
themes between Hispanic, African American, and
white students. Ryan, Tracey, and Rounds (1996)
invest igated the general izabilit y of Holland’s str uc-
ture of vocational interests across ethnicity with
the Vocational Preference Inventory (Holland;
1985), and no differences in interest structure were
found between African American and White high
school students.
Second, a lot of empirical studies investigated
career interest models from US contexts in other
cultural contexts, including Saudi Arabia (Meir,
Sohlberg, & Barak, 1973), Australia (Athanasou,
1985), Bolivia (Glidden- Tracey & Parraga, 1996),
Canada (Poitras, Guay, & Ratelle, 2012), China
(Bai, Lin, & Fang, 1996; Fang, Bai, & Lin, 1996;
Liu & Gong, 2000, 2002; Ou, Weng, & Lee, 2012),
Germany (Nagy, Trautwein, & Lüdtke, 2010),
Ireland (Darcy, 2005), Israel (Meir, Sohlberg, &
Barak, 1973), Japan (Long, Watanabe, & Tracey,
2006), Philippines (Primavera et al., 2010),
Portugal (Alves Ferreira & Hood, 1995), Romania
(Iliescu et al., 2013), and Serbia (Hedrih, 2008).
Among these studies, the Kuder Preference
Record Vocational (KPR- V; Kuder, 1948), the
Personal Globe Inventory (PGI; T. J. G. Tracey,
2002), and the SDS were major measurements.
In general, Holland’s (1985) classification of
occupat ions as “R eal ist ic,” “Inve stigat ive,” “Art ist ic,”
“Socia l,” “Enterpr ising,” a nd “Conventional ” among
non- Amer ican sa mples was la rgely suppor ted, wh ich
indicated that vocationa l interests have a simi lar cir-
cular configuration in Western and non- Western
cultures (e.g., Athanasou, 1985; Liu & Gong,
2000, 2002; Meir, Sohlberg, & Barak, 1973). For
instance, Fang and her collaborators (Fang, Bai, &
Lin, 1996; Bai, Lin, & Fang, 1996)demonstrated
the RIASEC construct validity of career interests
among Chinese students. Alves Ferreira and Hood
(1995) evaluated the Holland- type Portuguese
vocation al interest s and found that Hol land’s (1985)
interest dimensions have considerable validity in a
Portug uese student population.
In addition, in the process of validating
Holland’s circular interest model, some authors
investigated the construct validities of some other
derived models from Holland’s (1985) theor y. With
a large sample of Taiwanese high school students,
Ou, Weng, and Lee (2012) tested Holland’s simple
circular and calculus hypotheses, as well as Gati’s
hierarchical model and two- group partition model.
Holland’s (1985) simple circular hypothesis and
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Assessment of Career Interests 
the calculus hypothesis were supported. Gati’s
hierarchical model was supported by factor analy-
sis and hierarchical clustering on six interest- type
scores. Also, Gati’s three- group partition model
(RI, AS, EC) and a two- group partition model
(RI, ASEC) were also demonstrated in the Taiwan
sample. Similar results were well demonstrated in
an Irish context by Darcy (2005), in a Romanian
context by Iliescu et al. (2013), and in a German
context by Nagy, Trautwein, and Lüdtke (2010).
Third, besides the aforementioned studies that
exa mined the c onstruc t validit ies of career i nterests
in US and non- American contexts separately, the
construct validities of several popular career inter-
est models or instruments were largely supported
in some cross- cultural studies across the United
States and other countries (e.g., Einarsdottir etal.,
2002; Tracey, Watanabe, & Schneider, 1997). For
example, Tracey, Watanabe, and Schneider (1997)
investigated the structural invariance of vocational
interests across Japanese and American cultures.
In their study, three separate scale structures
were examined: Holland’s (1985) six- type circu-
lar model, Tracey and Round’s eight- type circular
model, and Tracey and Round’s spherical repre-
sentation. Even though the fits of the six- type and
spherical models in the Japanese sample were sig-
nif icantly worse than their fits in the US sample, no
differences in cross- cultural fit for the eight- type
model were found. In another study, Einarsdóttir
etal. (2002) compared the structural equivalence
of J.L. Holland’s and I.Gati’s RIASEC models of
vocational interests in Iceland and the US. The
results indicated that Holland’s (1985) and Gati
and Asher’s (2001) models both f it well in Icela ndic
and US samples. Compared to the SDS, the SII
showed greater structural fidelity.
Predictive Validity ofCareer Interest
Analysis of a national longitudinal survey, Project
TALENT (Wise, McLaughlin, & Steel, 1979),
showed that interests were the most inf luential
contributor to income, even within occupational
groups and controlling for occupational prestige.
Interests were also found to be powerful predic-
tors of college grades, college persistence, degree
attainment, and occupational prestige (Van
Iddekinge et al., 2011). We separately summarize
predictive validity of career interest from (1)a per-
spective of social cognition career theory (SCCT),
(2)a perspective of human resource management,
and (3) a perspective of learning and academic
achievement. Some important career interest mea-
sures were employed in those studies, including
the Strong Interest Inventory (Bartling & Hood,
1981; Luzzo &Day, 1999), the Kuder Occupational
Interest Survey (KOIS; Wigington, 1982), and
the California Occupational Preference System
Interest Inventory (COPSII; Knapp, Knapp, &
Knapp- Lee,1985).
First, we review the predictive validity of
career interest in the field of career development.
According to Lent’s SCCT model, career interest,
as a central construct, could predict several impor-
tant individual variables of career development.
Furthermore, the model of SCCT was largely sup-
ported across cultures (Lent et al., 2010). Some
empirical studies indicated the significant inf lu-
ences of career interests on career development
constructs such as career self- exploration (Nauta,
2007), career decision- making self- efficacy and
socia l cognitive career beliefs (Luzzo & Day, 1999),
career maturity (Wigington, 1982), and career
choice or college major (Bartling & Hood, 1981;
Knapp etal., 1985; Xu,2008).
Particularly, as proposed in SCCT, Xu (2008)
found that career interest could partially medi-
ate the influence of career self- efficacy on career
outcome expectation in a Chinese college student
sample. With a sample of 600 Portuguese high
school students, a similar result was supported
(Lent etal., 2010):interests mediate the relations
between self- efficacy and outcome expectations to
choice consideration.
Second, we review the predictive validity of
career interest in the field of human resources and
organizational behaviors. According to Holland
(1959, 1997), career interests should be an impor-
tant predictor for individuals’ performances,
includ ing occupat ional choice, orga nization al com-
mitment, job performance and satisfaction (Meri,
Esformes, & Friedland, 1994; Johnson & Hogan,
1981), retention, turnover (Mayeske, 1964), and
income (see Huang & Pearce,2013).
Some empirical studies provided evidence to
suppor t Holland’s (1985) hypothese s with di fferent
interest measures, including the SII (e.g., Ghiselli,
1942), the Kuder Preference Record (KPR; Kuder,
1939; Mayeske, 1964), and the SDR interest inven-
tory (Frit z sche, Powe ll , & Hof fm a n, 199 9; John son &
Hogan, 1981). For instance, in a sample of US
Forest Service employees, Mayeske (1964) found
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correlations that ranged from – .17 to .19 between
scores on the KPR and turnover. With regard to a
sample from the US Army, Van Iddeknge, Putka,
and Campbell (2011) reported that RIASEC inter-
ests significantly predicted job knowledge, perfor-
mance, and continuance intentions. For another
exa mple, using dat a from 665 occu pations obtai ned
from US Bureau of Labor Statistics and O*Net,
Huang and Pearce (2013) reported that greater
annual incomes are found in occupations charac-
terized by greater levels of investigative, enterpris-
ing, artistic, or social interests, or weaker levels of
realistic and conventional interests, and over half
the variance in annual income across occupations
was ex plained.
Thi rd, we review t he predict ive valid ity of career
interest in academic achievement. Theoretical
descriptions of vocational interests from voca-
tional and educational psychology have proposed
that interest constructs should be related to per-
formance and persistence in academic settings.
After a quantitative summary of over 60 years of
research, Nye, Su, Rounds, and Drasgow (2012)
concluded that career interests are indeed related to
performance and persistence in academic contexts.
Furthermore, the fit between individuals and their
environment was more predictive of performance
than interest alone. For example, with a sample of
157 undergraduate and postgraduate premedical
students (aged 20– 34 years) by the SDS, Henry
(1989) examined Holland’s (1985) hypothesis that
person– environment congruence relates positively
to academ ic achievement, and found that congr uent
students achieved significantly higher cumulative
and science GPAs than did incongruent students.
CULTURAL SPECIFICITY
STUDIES
Even though some important career interest mod-
els were la rgely supported across cu ltures, the issue
of cross- culture structural equivalence should
remain important and is related to the validity of
a model or interest measure for implications on
career counseling and practices. For example,
Rounds and Tracey (1996) examined the cross-
culture structural equivalence of J. L. Holland’s
(1985) circular order model, I.Gati’s three- group
partition, and an alternative three- class partition
on vocational interest correlation matrices drawn
from the cross- cultural literature. They concluded
that none of the three models was found to be an
adequate representation of the structure of voca-
tional interests for US ethnic samples. Therefore,
not only the issue of cross- cultu ral valid ity, but also
the iss ue of cross- cultu ral specificit y should be con-
sidered. Leong and Brown (1995) argued that cul-
tural specificity is concerned with constructs and
models that are specific to certain cultural groups
in terms of its role in explaining and predicting
behaviors. Some studies demonstrated the cultural
specificity of career interests assessed through par-
ticular measures in some cultures such as black
(Hargrove, 1998; Watson, McMahon, & Longe,
2011), Australian (Goddard, Patton, & Simons,
1999), Chinese (Fan et al., 2012), Flemish (Wille,
De Fruyt, & Feys, 2010), and Hispanic (Davison
Avilés & Spokane,1999).
First, compared with European Americans,
blacks from the United States and South Africa
showed some specific features in the validities of
career interests. Watson, McMahon, and Longe
(2011) investigated the career interests of rural
black South African children in terms of Holland’s
typology and status level, and found that these
children were more interested in professional sta-
tus level occupations in Social (i.e., people) and
Investigative (i.e., scientific) categories. Even
Af rican A merican undergraduates his toricall y have
tended to express less interest in science- related
occupations and more interest in social- related
occupations (e.g., Witherspoon & Speight, 2009).
Hargrove (1998) found that Investigative interest
and culture- related work values were predictive of
the science- relatedness of majors and career goals
in American black undergraduates.
Second, a few empirical studies of career inter-
est validity in Chinese contexts found interesting
results. In a cross- cultural comparison between
American and Hong Kong students, Fan et al.
(2012) found that Enterprise interest type medi-
ated the association between social potency and
career exploration in the Hong Kong sample;
while artistic interest type was the mediator in
the American sample. Leung and Hou (2005)
examined the structure of career interest among
Chinese high school students in Hong Kong using
interest test scores from the SDS. They found that
a hierarchical model of interest with six primary
interest factors forming three interest clusters
seems to be most valid for Chinese high school
students:realistic- investigative, artistic- social, and
social- enterprising- conventional.
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Assessment of Career Interests 
Third, some other studies examined the effects
of career interests in different cultural contexts.
In the study of Davison, Avilés, and Spokane
(1999), Hispanic American students expressed
higher interests on the Conventional theme com-
pared with white students. Goddard, Patton, and
Simons (1999) investigated the vocational interests
for unemployed individuals with the Vocational
Interest Survey for Australia (VISA), and found
that the unemployed persons were significantly
more likely to nominate their interests toward the
“things” pole on a “people things” dimension
than Australian secondary school students. In a
longitudinal study in a Flemish alumni sample,
Wille, De Fruyt, and Feys (2010) reported a sig-
nificant positive association between enterprising
interests and job instability, as well as a negative
association between conventional interests and job
instability.
CULTURES AND GENDER
INTERACTIONS
Some genetic a nd physiologic factors such as prena-
tal androgen might significantly contribute to gen-
der differences of career interests (Beltz, Swanson,
& Berenbau m, 2011; Hell & Pä ßler, 2011). However,
from a role congruity perspective (Diekman &
Eagly, 2008), the internalization of gender roles
leads people to endorse gender- stereotypic goals,
which then lead to interest in occupations that
afford the pursuit of those goals. There might be
some significant interactions between cultures and
gender on career interests (Collins, Reardon, &
Waters, 1980). Even though the vast majority of
research supports the hexagon of si x types of ca reer
interests proposed by Holland, and some studies
have shown that the model applied equally well to
women and men, Tak (200 4) and Tang (2001) have
found divergent or conf licting results regard ing the
“best” number of types and the structure of inter-
ests to Korean and Chinese college students (males
and females). In this section, we review culture and
gender interactions on career interests from three
angles.
First, we examined gender differences in the
factor structure of interests. Based on the work
by Feldman and Meir (1976), Rounds, Davison,
and Dawis (1979), as well as Diamond (1981),
Hansen and the colleagues (1993) analyzed the
structure of interests using the revision of the
1985 SII (Hansen & Campbell, 1985), with the
Women- and Men- in- General samples. The results
demonstrated that gender varied in the underlying
structure of interests. Specifically, for Chicana(o)
and Latina(o) college students, Hansen, Sarma,
and Collins (1999) found that the male Chicano/
Latino sample data adhered to the hypothesized
RIASEC ordering, but the female plot of the six
types deviated from this ordering. Similar results
were found in With, Proyer, and Häusler (2007),
with a Swiss sample, as well as in Alves Ferreira and
Hood (1995) among Portuguese high school and
college students. In contrast, with circular unidi-
mensional scaling (CUS) analyses, Kantamneni
and Fouad (2013) indicated that the career inter-
ests of the South Asian– American female partici-
pants followed a circular RIASEC pattern, with a
good fit for both the quasi- circumplex and circu-
lar variations of Holland’s model. For males, CUS
analyses found an IASREC pattern, with a good
fit for the quasi- circumplex model but not for the
circularmodel.
Second, we examined gender differences in
specific dimensions of career interests. Some
scholars examined gender differences of career
interests assessed through several popular models/
measures. A typical gender difference is that men
have greater interests in practical hands- on activi-
ties, and women have greater interests in helping
people and in artistic activities, even across age
groups (e.g., middle school and college students)
and ethnic groups in the United States (e.g., Betz &
Wolfe, 2005; Ellis, Ratnasingam, & Wheeler,
2012; Leuty & Hansen, 2014; Lippa, 1998; Snyder,
2009; Turner et al., 2010). Fouad’s (2002) study
supported this conclusion among student sam-
ples of African Americans, Asian Americans,
European Americans, Hispanics/ Latinos, and
American Indians (n = 3,637) by completing
the SII (Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer,
1994)across American ethnic groups. With regard
to a sample from the US Army, Van Iddeknge,
Putka, and Campbell (2011) found that men had
higher realistic interest scores than women, and
women scored higher than men on social interests.
Using the Strong- Campbell Interest Inventory
(SCII) in a 3- year longitudinal study, Mullis,
Mullis, and Gerwels (1998) also found that males
had higher mean scores on the Realistic theme,
whereas females had higher scores on the Artistic,
Social and Conventional themes. The findings
by Robinson (2013) in a sample of 139 American
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rural high school youth were further conf irmed the
gender pattern of interests in US contexts:Female
youth expressed strongest interest toward health
care, and lowest interest toward green energy
roles, whereas male youth were most interested in
construction, transportation, advanced manufac-
turing, and homeland security. Some studies dem-
onstrated this gender difference in other cultural
contexts (e.g., Wetzel & Hell, 2013, in Germany;
Tien, 2011, in Taiwan; Proyer & Häusler, 2007, in
Switzerland).
However, some other authors found a few gen-
der differences that were not consistent with the
findings under American contexts. For instance,
using the PGI- S (Tracey, 2010)in a diverse Ch inese
sample of 2,567 high school and college students,
Zhan g etal. (2013) found that men repor ted signi fi-
cantly higher Thing scale scores and lower Prestige
scores, but there were no gender differences on
People scales. Rohlfing et al. (2012) investigated
the moderated effects of gender on the relation of
occupational knowledge to career interests and
competence perceptions among Italian children,
and found that girls were inclined to have more
knowledge of people occupations, whereas boys
were inclined to have more knowledge of high-
prestige occupations.
Third, we examined developmental gender dif-
ferences of career interests . There are two issues for
gender differences of career interest from a devel-
opmental perspective. One is that sociocultural
factors have an impact on gender differences of
career interest development. Using meta- analytic
data collection methods based on the results from
Holla nd’s RIA SEC ty pology usi ng the SII and SC II
from 1976 to 2004, Bubany and Hansen (2011)
found an increase in the Enterprising interests
among females and a decrease in the Realistic and
Investigative interests among males. They further
argued that this finding, along with a reduction in
differences between female and male Investigative,
Enterprising, and Conventional interests from ear-
lier to more recent cohorts, parallels the movement
of American culture toward egalitarian views of
gender.
The other issue is derived from a hypoth-
esis of the SCCT theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett
1994) that individual career interests are closely
related to life and learning experiences. It is
inferred that gender differences of interests might
be developmental with the growth of individuals.
Low (2009) meta- analyzed the patterns of mean-
level change in vocational interests from early ado-
lescence (age 12)to the end of emerging adulthood
(age 24.9), and found t hat vocational interest s show
a clear pat tern of normat ive change i n gender diffe r-
ences in the United States. Conventional interests
were seen to increase among women and decrease
among men during the period; while Realistic
interes ts increase d in women and decrea sed in men.
However, inconsistent results were found by other
researchers. For instance, in a retrospective cohort
study with a large sample of American college stu-
dents, Sadler etal. (2012) found that males showed
far more interest in engineering, whereas females
were more attracted to careers in health and medi-
cine du ring thei r high school yea rs. Dur ing the hig h
school years, the percentage of males interested in
a STEM career remained stable (from 39.5 to 39.7),
whereas for females it declined from 15.7 to 12.7.
Yang (2011) found that, from grade 8 to grade 10,
for students who improved their academic per-
formance in mathematics, only males exhibited a
significant increase in the career interests of both
Technical and Science/ Technology; and when stu-
dents improved their academic performance in sci-
ence, only males exhibited a significant increase in
career interest in the Technical category.
Unlike in the United States, Nagy, Trautwein,
and Lüdtke (2010) found that German females
did not yet differentiate between Realistic and
Investigative at the end of high school, the dis-
tinction between the two domains that developed
during the university years. However, males have
already been able to differentiate between these
domains in high school.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
In terms of the assessment of career interest, addi-
tional studies of both cultural validity and cul-
tural specificity are clearly needed. The former is
concerned with testing the cross- cultural validity
of Western models and theories of career devel-
opment with other cultural groups. On the other
hand, cultural specificity studies seek to iden-
tify culturally unique variables for increasing our
understanding of the vocational behavior of cul-
turally different populations (Leong & Hardin,
2002). The basic premise of our recommendations
for future directions is that both cultural validity
(etic) and cultural specificity (emic) studies are
needed to advance researchers’ understanding of
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Assessment of Career Interests 
cross- cultural career psychology (Leong, 1997;
Leong & Brown,1995).
In a commentary article for a special section
on cross- cultural career psychology, Leong (1997)
pointed to two aspects of cultural validity, namely
internal validity and external validity. In that com-
mentar y, he noted that the t wo studies i n the specia l
section assessing the structural validity of various
models of the structure of vocational interest are
important and significant contributions to the lit-
erature in the career psychology of cross- cultural
populations. Testing of the cultural validity of
existi ng and Western- centered theor ies and models
for various cross- cultural populations allows us to
identify the boundary conditions of these models
(Leong & Brown, 1995). In the same way, the stud-
ies reviewed in this chapter that have examined the
internal va lidity of career interest measures ac hieve
the same purpose and add to our confidence in the
cross- cultural equivalence of the measurement
models within thesetests.
Leong (1997) went on to observe that both
internal validity and external validity studies are
needed in cross- cultural career psychology. By
examining the cultural validity of different US
models of the structure of vocational interests
across different cultural groups, the two studies
in the special section provided evidence for the
internal or structural validity of our career interest
measures, just like those reviewed in this chapter.
While such studies are extremely important since
they examine internal validity, or what Van de
Vijver and Leung (1997) have referred to as struc-
tural validity, we also need studies of external valid-
ity to address the question of how these constructs
relate to external or criterion variables across dif-
ferent cultural groups. Leong (1997) cited the work
of Gottfredson (1986) to argue that both studies
of internal and external validity are needed when
evaluating potential cultural biases and assessing
the cultural validity of our career instruments. For
example, the structure of vocational interests may
be similar across different cultural groups, but do
they predict occupational choice and job satisfac-
tion equally well across different cultures? Leong
(1997) also cited Cronbach and Meehl’s (1955)
concept of construct validity in support of this
dual assessment approach (internal and external
validity). As pointed out by Cronbach and Meehl
(1955), construct validity, including cultural valid-
ity, requires the development and elaboration of a
nomological network of relationships between the
target construct and other constructs and criterion
variables. In cross- cultural career assessment, a
const ruct va lidit y approach wou ld include ass essing
the cultural validity of our measures by examining
the nomological network of interrelated variables
across cultures. Indeed, one could easily envision
that the Multi- Trait Multi- Method (MTMM)
approach recommended by Campbell and Fiske
(1959) would need to be extended to Multi- Trait
Multi- Method Multi- Cultures (MTMMMC) in
advancing cross- cultural career assessment.
Future studies of the cultural validity of career
interest measures should also follow the method-
ological framework of measurement equivalence.
The problem of equivalence of measurement has
always been a central problem in cross- cultural
research, and career psychology is no exception
(Leong, 1997). Cross- cultural psychologists have
identified four types of equivalences that would be
important for researchers to examine when con-
ducting research with cross- cultural populations
(e.g., Lonner & Ibrahim, 1996; Marsella & Leong,
1995): (1) functional, (2) conceptual, (3) lin-
guistic, and (4)metric equivalence. According to
Leong (1997), functional equivalence is concerned
with whether a particular event, activity, or rela-
tionship serves the same function across cultures.
Conceptual equiva lence is concerned w ith whether
two cultures attach the same meaning to a similar
concept or even have the same concepts. Ling uistic
equivalence is considered to be absent if two cul-
tures do not have the same words (versus concept
in conceptual equivalence) for an object, activity,
or phenomena. Metric equivalence is concerned
with whether the numerical scales we use in our
research are perceived similarly across cultures
(Leong ,1997).
Neither of the studies in the special section
reviewed by Leong (1997) addressed these differ-
ent issues of equivalence. In one sense, the contex-
tual factors discussed earlier relate to the issue of
conceptual equivalence, which is concerned with
the similarity and differences in the nature and
meaning of a particular concept. In the present
case, the relevant concepts are those of vocational
interest and of occupational choice. Tracey et al.
(1997) did refer to t he problems in translating their
Inventory of Occupational Preferences (IOP; 141
occupational titles) into Japanese, although they
did not discuss the problems in terms of either
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linguistic or conceptual equivalence. However, the
fact that 20% percent of the items did not trans-
late well (Tracey et al., 1997) suggests that the
conceptual and linguistic equivalence of IOP may
have been an issue. Tracey et al. (1997) also did
not indicate if and how the abbreviated VPI used
in the study was translated into Japanese. This
lack of information was troubling since the differ-
ences in the performance of the different models
(i.e., Holland’s 6- type RIASEC, as measured by
the VPI, and Tracey and Round’s eight- type circu-
lar model, as measured by the IOP, may have been
inf luenced by how well each instrument was trans-
lated into Japanese).
As Leong (1997) pointed out, studies that
examine the cultural validity of Western- based
models of career development tend to be able to
answer only the question of whether these models
and theories work for racial and ethnic minority
groups and not why they do or do not work. This
is where the role of contextual factors and cultural
speci ficity comes i nto play. Most career psychology
theories have tended to emphasize the “person-
variables” and ignore the “environment- variables”
(Leong, 1997). Culture- specific variables in cross-
cultural career psychology help us reintegrate
the environmental or contextual factors that vary
across cultures back into our theories and models.
Leong (1997) cited the results from the research of
Super and colleagues (1982) into cultural differ-
ences in career salience in the Work Importance
Study (WIS) to illustrate this point. According to
Leong (1997), the WIS findings suggest that there
may be some cultural relativity in the meaning of
work across different cultures:
Due to a variety of contextual factors ranging
from racism in the United States to life- time
employment in Japan, vocational interest
may be moderated by career salience which
in turn may vary across cultures. Therefore,
two cultures could share the same structure
in vocational interest and yet attach differ-
ent meanings to the work itself. Alternatively,
two cultures may have slightly different str uc-
tures of vocational interests because they each
attach dif ferent meanings to work. At the very
least, the relationship between career inter-
est and career salience is worthy of further
investigation especially as it applies to cross-
cult ural populations. (Leong, 1997, p.357)
In discussing the dual approach of cultural
validity and cultural specificity in cross- cultural
career psychology, Leong and Hardin (2002)
noted the complimentarity of the constructs to
each other. Studies of Western theories of careers,
such as Holland’s (1985) and Super’s (1990), have
tended to find cultural gaps when these models
are applied to culturally diverse populations. For
example, whereas the structure of Holland’s model
may transfer to other cultural groups, expected
relations to external criterion variables have yet
to be found consistently (Leong & Hardin, 2002).
On the other hand, Super’s (1990) model is con-
ceptually biased toward an individualistic concep-
tion of career development that fails to account
for the collectivistic orientations of many Asian
and Asian American groups (e.g., the role of the
family is neglected) (Leong & Hardin, 2002). For
Asian Americans, culture- specific studies provide
concepts such as acculturation or self- construal
as possible moderators or additional explanatory
variables for enhancing researchers’ understanding
of the career psychology of this particular cultural
group (Leong & Hardin,2002).
More research on these culture- specific vari-
ables will help us develop culturally relevant and
appropriate career counseling models for clients
from other cultures. We would like to propose
that developments in indigenous psychologies can
provide a valuable framework for proceeding with
culture- specific studies in cross- cultural career
psychology. In a recent chapter advocating for the
development of indigenous models of vocational
psychology, Leong and Pearce (2014) noted that
the va lidity a nd specif icity of an as sessment are cr it-
ically reduced when culture is neglected:“W hether
or not motivated by a mistaken ‘color blindness’
(Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000)or a
belief that culture is a nuisance variable in science,
it is a serious problem that underlies major cultural
gaps in psychological theory and research” (p.69).
According to Leong and Pearce (2014), the pri-
mary goal of indigenous approaches is to construct
a specific indigenous psychology for each society
with a given population or a distinctive culture.
They argued for vocational psychologists to begin
to develop and apply indigenous models in their
work. To counter the problem of WEIRD science
(Henreich, Hei ne, & Norenzaya n, 2010), as disc ussed
earlier, they proposed that indigenous psychology, as
the study and application of psychology specific to a
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Assessment of Career Interests 
given cultural population, will enrich the methods
for vocational psychological research and practice.
In support of this proposal for advancing more indig-
enous approaches in career psychology, Leong and
Pearce (2014) point to the fact that it is often inap-
propriate to use models from other cultures because
they ca nnot expla in phenomena as opt imally a s those
models developed from within one’s own culture.
Impor ted models from t he West wi ll tend to ignore or
incompletely speci fy the in fluence of c ulture- specif ic
or contex tual va riables in t he career development a nd
adjustment of workers f rom other cultures.
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