Behavioral validation of a vocational needs scale

Abstract

Traditional approaches to the validation of vocational needs and interests inventories typically have used correlations with scales on other inventories and vocational success and satisfaction as the basis for demonstrating validity of new paper-and-pencil measures of vocational needs and interests. Although some behavioral criteria have been used to validate needs and interests inventories, most of these criteria tend to focus on longitudinal criteria such as career choice. The present paper examines the potential usefulness of designing short-term behavioral criteria as a technique for validating vocational needs and interests inventories. Scores on the Minnesota Importance Questionnaire (MIQ; Gay, Weiss, Hendel, Dawis, & Lofquist, 1971) are "measured vocational needs" and reflect vocational needs dimensions such as Ability Utilization, Independence and Working Conditions. Manifest vocational needs are behaviors which are observed by others. If a worker interacts frequently with his/her coworkers, an observer would infer that the person had a high need for co-workers. Measured vocational needs and manifest vocational needs are two methods for obtaining a description of an individual’s vocational needs system. Although these two methods may differ in the vocational needs ascribed to individuals, agreement between methods should be high if the measure of vocational needs is a valid measure. The present study was designed to test an hypothesis concerning the relationship between scores on the Independence scale on the MIQ and a person’s behavior. This scale, represented by the statement "I could work alone on the job," was hypothesized to differentiate between individuals who would choose a group task versus an individual task. Specifically, subjects who chose an individual task were hypothesized to have had higher scores on the MIQ Independence scale than subjects who chose a group task.