Bulletin of Educational Psychology, 1981, 14,231-240. Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan, China.
VOCATIONAL INTERESTS OF ELEMENTARY AND
JUNIOR IDGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AS RELATED
TO INTELLIGENCE AND SEX*
WU-TIEN WU, JO -LIEH HUNG
The purposes of this study were: (1) to investigate the vocational interests of the bright, the normal, and the menta11y retarded students; (2) to compare vocational interests among the brig祉， the normal, and the mentally retarded students; (3) to seek influencial factors and effective guidelines in the area of children's career development.
The sample was drawn from ten schools in Taipei city, composed of 192 Hfth graders and 288 eight graders. Based on Ho11and's paradigm (1973), the Vocational 1nterest 1nventory (VII) in Chinese was devised and administered accordingly to the subjects. The VII consists of 118 items of six types of vocational interests, i.e., realistic, investigative, artistic, social,
enterprising and conventionaJ. The data obtained were treated by a principle axis factor an-alysis and two and thre
•
way analysis of covariance with social economic status as covariate.The main findings of this study were as follows: (1) The bright and normal students had similar factor structure in vocational preference, while the retarded showed less differ-entiation with only one factor emerged. (2) Grade effects were sìgnificant on Hve types of vocational interests, i.e., rea1istic, investigative, artistic, social and conventional. The higher grade students indicated more interests in these areas. (3) There were significant sex differ-ences iri the vocational choice: boys preferred rea1istic and investigative occupations, while girls preferred artistic and social ones. (4) There were significant inteI1igence effects: the retarded showed much fewer vocational interests in a11 types than the other two intelIigence groups. 1t suggests that the retarded might be short of occupational information. on the other hand, the bright students expressed more interests in investigative and artistic domains than normal students. This is in accordance with their abilities as weIl as social
expecta-tlOns.
In 1971, when Sidney P. Marlar肘， }r., then U.S. Commissionor of Education, proposed that all education be thought of as preparation for a career
,
the term and the concept of“
career education" began to attract wide attention. He then suggested that the f，也us from kindergarten to grade six be on“
career awareness,"
from grade seven to grade ten on“
career exploration," and from grade eleven to grade twel ve or beyond on“
career prepara-tion." Thus the elementary sch∞1 would heIp children to become better acquainted with the great variety of occupations. The junior high sch∞1 would help its pupi1s to compare dif-ferent clusters of occupations,
to select a few of them for more intensive investigation,
andto select one cluster for which they would begin to prepare. Vocational preferences of ele-mentary and junior high students thus would be an interesting and importment topic for both career counselors and re記archers.
*
Paper presented at the 4th Asian Regional Association for Vocational and Educational Guidance (ARA VEG) Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 9-12, 1980.• 232 • 教育心理學報
There are may theories of VI∞ational choice and career development. Some explain 閻明
cupational choice in terms of environmental influences (e.g., Caplow, 1954; Clark, 1931; Hollingshead, 1949; Mi1ler and Form, 1964); Others find their explanations in the needs of the individual (e.g., Ginzberg et al., 1951; Hopp<跳， 1957; Roe, 1958; Super, 1953). However,
according to Holland (1966, 1973), there is yet a third element to be considered, namely,
the interaction of the two. Holland's theory can be summarized in these words: (1) Most persons can be categorized as one of six types-Realistic, Intellectual, Social, Conventional,
Enterprising, and Artistic; (2) There are six kinds of environments: Realistic, Intellectual,
Social, Conventional, Enterprising, and Artistic; (3) People search for envionments and voca-tions that will permit them to exercise their skills and abilities to express their attitudes and values, to take on agreeable problems and roles, and to avoid disagreeable ones; (4) A per-son's behavior can be explained by the interaction of his personality pattern and his environ-ment. Holland (1973) has accordingly developed the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) for surveying six types of vocational interests. The VPI is basically construct-oriented and seems to be most appropriate for cross個cultural study.
In dealing with influencial factors, many studies on v∞ational choice have been focused on soc~。但onomic asp配ts and self-concept dimension. However, there is yet the intelligence factor. It is very possible that pupils of different levels of inteIIigence would perceive v∞a
tions differently and make different choices. Hoppock (1976) noted that there was a con-trast between the reactions of children with low and high IQs. When the six-grade class with IQs of 46 to 92 visited the knife factory, nearly everyone saw at least one beginning job that he liked. When the class with IQs of 114 to 142 visited a television-antenna plant
,
several pupils wouldn't like to do that kind of work because
“
it must get very monotonous." Rice (1978) asked 111 students in grades 8,
10,
and 12 to write down three kinds of their favoriate v∞ations and then classified their intel1igence aαording to their preferences on theOtis Mental Ability T自t. It was interesting to find out that a considerable portion of students
used as an independent variab1e.
τ'he genera1 hypotheses of this study were as follows:
1. There are significant re1ations between intelligence and v∞ational interests; that is,
vocationa1 interests vary with different intelligence levels. 2. There are significant sex differences in VIα:ational choice.
3. There are significant differences of vocationa1 interests between students in grade 5 and in grade 8.
METHOD Subjects
The subjects of this study were 480 pupils drawn from grade 5 and grade 8 from three e1ementary sch∞Is and seven junior high sch∞.1s. There were 192 fifth graders and 288 eighth graders. As shown in Table 1
,
there were two intelligence levels,
the bright and the normal, in grade 5; there were three intelligence levels, the bright, the norma1, and there-個rded， in grade 8.. The ceU size is 48 equally. TABLE 1
SAMPLE DISTRIBUTION OF THIS STUDY
Grade 5 Grade 8
Bright Normal Retarded Bright Normal Retarded
Boys 48 48 48 48 48
Girls 48 48 48 48 48
Tota1 96 96 96 96 96
The retarded in grade 5 were not incIuded for the reason that in a preliminary survey it was found that their vocaburaries were t∞ limited to understand the wording of the in-ventory provided.
τ'he subjects were randomly selected on the basis of intelligence scores. Firstly, the pupils in grade 5 were given the Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM)
,
th個ewith percentile over 85 were considered“
bright." SimiIar1y, the students in grade 8 were given the Chi-nese form of Army General Classification Test (AGCT),
those with AGCT score over 120were considered
“
bright." The retarded 組mp1e in grade 8 was drawn from the educab1e mentally retarded (EMR) class wi也 IQs of 50 to 70 on Chinese form of Stanford-BinetScale. The normal subjects were randomly drawn from the classes from which the
“
bright" were sel配ted. The number of the bright and the normal in a given class was thus equi-valent.Instruments
In addition to the established intelligence sca1es, the V凹ational Interest Inventory (VII) was devised based on Holland's framwork (1966, 1973). Items of the VII were derived andl or adopted from HoUand's VPI (HoUand
,
1973) and the vocational awareness scale of theBarcIay Classr∞m Climate Inventory (BCCI, see Barclay, 1974; Wu, 1975). A preliminary test and item analysis procedure were conduct吋. The fina1 form of the VII consists of 118
• 234 • 教育心理學報
items of six ty戶s of v，也ationa1 interests
,
i.e.,
Rea1istic (23 items),
Investigative (18 items),
Artistic (20 items)
,
Social (22 items),
Enterprising (20 items),
and Conventional (15 items). Two illustrating items are provided for practice. Below is one of them.口 Yes 口 No Librarian (to take care of 以沁ks in a library)
The directions on 也.e front page are as follows: This is an inventory of your feelings and attitudes about any kind of work. Fill out yo叮 sheet by following directions given be-low: (1) Show on your sheet 血e 臼cupations which interest or appea1 to you by checking the "Y，聞"; (2) Show the occupations which you disIike or find uninteresting by ch配king the
“
No"; (3) Every item should be checked,
please leave no blank. Proeedore and Data Analysisτ'he VII was administered in group. The subjects were free to ask questions relating to the meaning of the items. There was no time Iimit. However
,
most subjects finished the inventory in 30 minutes.The data obtained were treated by the SPSS ∞mputer programs, including (1) The principle axis factor analysis for three intelligence groups respectively. The pur政治e of this
pr∞edure was to ∞mpare the factor structure of different intelligence groups 問他er than to test the construct of the VII; (2) Three-way analysis of covariance for the bright and the normal of both sexes in both grades, with SES as covariate and VII measures as de-pendent v缸iables; (3) Two-way analysis of ∞，variance for 切th sexes and three intelligence groups in grade 8, with SES as covariate and VII measures as dependent variables.
RESULTS
Factor Analysis
Using 6 subsca1e scores as dependent variables and utilizing principle axis factor analysis with varimax rotation, the results of each intelligence group were obtained and are here summarized in Table 2.
The factor number wi由 eigenvalue over 1.0 was two for both the bright group and the normal group, but only one for the retarded group. L∞，king into the factor 1個dings of both the bright and the normal groups
,
the major components (factor loadings over .40) of them were quite similar, that Realistic and Investigative were the major components of Factor 1 and Artistic,
Social,
Enterprising,
and Conventional were of Factor 2. For retarded group, only one factor was heaviIy loaded by alI subscales. It ap醉ars that the retarded group was less differentiated in their v，∞ationa1 choice than the non-retarded.TABLE 2
FACTOR MATRIXES ON VOCATIONAL INTERESTS OF TBREE GROUPS
d-r d-o 恥副 -piw 啥 i h
面
一 r -nu -zsi'7TL mv 叫一也 2 hmEsnUVA--ML
川一伽
1 叮 -m d-w h-d2…恥而
扯一。 ]-c1 -ea 一 F Bright (N=192)x
s
Realistic 4.02 Investigative 8.04 Artistic 6.67 Social 5.68 Enterprising 4.61 Conventional 2.48 Retarded (N=96)x
s
Normal (N=192)x
s
.66* .79* .73* .80* .67* .69* .82* .91* .21 .19 .34 .15 .31 .15 .79* .86* .78* .86* .89* .86* -.05 .22 .27 .36 .21 .14 .84* .75* .80* .64* 3.80 3.18 2.85 3.37 3.24 2.07 3.60 2.42 2.95 3.84 2.82 1.70 4.67 5.124.58
4.44 4.11 3.31 4.20 6.76 5.24 5.99 4.71 3.02 3.82 5. 的 4.91 4.19 3.77 2.62 3.17 53.00 2.83 1.72 47.30 28.60 1.79 29.80 2.38 39.50 EigenvalueTotal Variance Accounted * Factor loading is over .40
ANCOV A in Both Grades
The results of three-way ANCOV A in both grades were summarized in Table 3. The SES effect had been partialed out and 位le means of each sub-group were adjusted as shown in Table 4. lt was found 曲的: (1) Grade eff凹ts were significant on five types of VI凹a
tional interests, i.e., Realistic, lnvestigative, Artistic, Social, and Conventiona1. The pupils in the higher grade indicated more interests in these areas; (2) There were significant sex differences in the vocational choice: boys preferred realistic and investigative 個.cupatio醋，
while girls preferred artistic and s∞ial ones; (3) There were significant intelligence effects: the bright pupils expressed more interests in investigative and artistic domains than the normal pupils. These main eff凹的 mention吋 above were explained in spite of some of the significant interactions, since the interactions were a11 ordinal.
TABLE 3
SUMMARY OF TBREE-WAY ANCOVA (SES AS COVARIATE) ON VOCATIONAL INTERESTS FOR THE GIFTED AND THE NORMAL
Conv. Enterp. F Ratio Social R臼1. Art. 19.90** 87.17料 5.16* 6.42* .53 1.34 5.93* 1.28 11. 06料 12.12** .09 .75 2.95 .15 5.49* 4.87車 .25 .63 3.67 6.15* .0。 qrH 且 U 月 4 732
...
Main Eff自t Grade(A) 1 Sex(B) 1 Intelligence(C) 1 Two-way Interaction AXB 1 AXC 1 BxC 1 Three-way Interation AxBxC 1 df Source 23.16** 2.45 1.45 17.7伊* 1.54 .23 2.90 .04 .00 5.67* 11.24料 .21 14.93** 29.48輛 6.42* Invest. 21.19** 56.81** .12 .35 4.73* .36 .01 .05 .33 .00*
p<.05 艸 p<.Ol• 236 • 教育心理學報
TABLE 4
ADJUSTED MEANS OF VOCATIONAL INTERESTS OF 咽E
BRIGHT AND THE NORMAL IN GRADES 5 AND 8
R個1. Invest. Art. Social Enterp. Conv. Total
Grade 5 3.18 6.35 5.05 5.31 4.31 2.13 25.94 Grade 8 5.04 8.49 6.87 6.35 5.01 3.37 35.18 Boys 5.60 9.54 4.71 5.12 4.62 2.57 31.97 Girls 2.60 5.24 7.22 6.55 4.70 2.93 29.14 Bright 4.19 7.98 6.61 5.94 4.65 2.67 31.77 Normal 4.03 6.82 5.31 5.72 4.67 2.83 29.35
ANCOV A in Grade Eight
The results of two-way ANCOV A in grade 8 were summarized in Table 5. The SES effect had also been controlled and the adjusted means were calculated as shown in Table 6. The findings were the following: (1) Similar to the findings of Table 3
,
boys showed more preferences for artistic and investigative vocations, while girls showed more interests in artistic and social ones. The new findings were that girls tended to be more interested in enterprising and conventional vocations; (2) In terms of intelligence, the retarded showed much fewer vocational interests in all types than the other two intelligence groups; on the other hand,
the bright students again expressed more interests in investigative and artistic domains than normal students.Source
TABLE 5
SUMMARY OF TWO-WAY ANCOVA (SES AS CAVORIATE) ON VOCATIONAL INTERESTS FOR THE 8TH GRADERS
F Ratio
df ReaC -Invest.- .--Art于一六騙al--E聶豆豆了商品了可兩
Main Effect Sex(A) 1 39.91料 31. 37料 27.41料 11.89紳 4.67* 5.11* .01 Int.(B) 2 5.11料 47.01料 20.84牌 13.54料 9.53輛 15.74料 28.69料 Two-way Interaction AxB 2 .39 1.66 2.74 2.51 1.93 8.02** 1.41 * p<.05 艸 p<.Ol TABLE 6
ADJUSTED MEANS OF VOCATIONAL INTERESTS OF 8TH GRADERS Real. Invest. Art. Social Enterp. Conv. Total
Boys 6.19 7.81 4.22 4.73 3.81 2.47 泊 .12
Girls 3.01 5.01 6.88 6.45 4.77 3.25 29.28
Bright 5.20 9.56 7.73 6.77 5.15 3.33 37.62
Normal 5.28 7.19 6.01 6.51 5.00 3.85 33.67
DISCUSSION
Do Vocational Interests Vary with Intelligence?
It seems quite clear in this study that vocational interests varied with inte1ligence in many aspects. It is also obvious that the retarded pupils were not only retarded in intelli-gence development but aIωin career development in terms of the awareness of occupationa1
information. Career education obviously includes occupational information and vocational choice in a given time could be an important index of career awareness. The less differ-entiation and fewer interests in v，凹ational choice of the retarded as indícated by the results of factor analysis and analysis of covariance showed that the retarded might be far behind the normal in their v，α:ationaI maturity. 臼1 the other hand, they did not show unreaIistic vocational imagination as indicated by Ríce (1978). There might be culture differences in this regard. The present writers would suspect that the less cognitive differentiation might account for their obscure factor structure of vocationa1 interests. The failure in perceiving new data and the faiIure-oriented anticipation might be related to the reluctancy of choosing occupations.
The differences between the bright and the nonnal in vocationa1 choices were not so
揖lient 晶晶.e differences between the retarded and the non-retarded. However
,
the fact that the bright were more interested in investigative and artistic vocations than the normal is centainly significant. Investigative vocations such as anthropologist,
engineer,
physic旭nand artistic v凹ations such as English teacher
,
artist,
architect are mostly professional and need high level of ability. In addition,
there is a s∞ial expectation for the intelligent to do more sophisticated work. In coping with the intelligence-role ideology,
it is no wonder 也atthe bright had higher self-expectation and, in tum, higher vocational imagination than the normal. To sum up, it seems' that the results of this study in this res伊ct are in full ac-cordance with pupiIs' abiIities as weU as social expectations.
Do Vocational Interests Vary with Sex and Grade?
In reviewing the th切'retícal and research literature on career development and sex-role
ex戶也tation， it can be found that both males and fema1es have been limited in their career development by pervasive sex-role stereotyping in aII aspects of society. The 1imiting ef-feets have been cumulative and developmental, starting at home and reinforced at every level of the educational spectrum from elementary years through coIIege, over the life span. (Hansen
,
1980) It is also evident in this study that boys and girls expressed their vocationa1preferences differently even in the elementary level
,
i.e.,
boys favored realistic andinvesti-gativeωcupations， while girls preferred artistic and socia1 ones. Using Holland's (1973) words, boys' behavioral tendencies might lead to the acquisition of manua1, m也hanical， agri-cultural
,
electrical,
and technical competencies and to a deficit in s∞ial and educ甜onal com-petencies. These tendencies might al叩 lead to an acquisition of scientific and mathematical competencies and to a deficit in persuasive competencies. Girls' behaviora1 tendencies, on the other hand, might lead to an acquisition of artistic competencies-language, art, music,drama
,
writing-and to a deficit in clerical or business system competencies. These tenden-cies might also lead to an acquisition of human relations competentenden-cies such as interpersonal• 238 • 教育心理學報
and educational competencies and to a deficit in manual and technical competenci臼. Th間e
results are quite congruent with sex-role e勾ectations existing in Chinese culture setting.
on
theoretical ground it seems possible 血.at ∞cupational information may have some-thing to do with age or grade level. Marland (1971) suggested that from kindergarten to grade six is the stage of“
career awareness,"
from grade seven to grade ten is the stage of“
career exploration,"
and from grade eleven to grade twelve or beyond is the stage of“回reer preparation." Super and Overstreet (1960) concluded that
“....
the typical ninth-grade boy has not yet r臼.ched a stage at which wisdom of VI∞ational preference can beex-P臼ted." It also showed in this study that grade made differences in pupils' vocational choices. ln general
,
pupi1s in higher grade indicated more interests in almost all vocational domains except the Enterprising. This does 1'I0t necessari1y lead to the conclusion that the students increased the accuracy and the adequacy of the occupational information with their age. However,
it is most probable that 也e students increased their vocational awareness with age. As grade increased, they became more acquainted with the variety of occupa-tions and b民ame more eager to explore a wide range of occupations.It should also be noted that a1though “vα:ational choice is a pr凹的s rather than event
,"
(Super
,
1957) it does not deny the fact that every individual must someday decide that he will or will not accept a job that has been offered. One may,
indeed,
have to make several such decisions. Each decision will be affected by 0肘'sdevelopment up to that point.(Hop-研lCk， 1976) Therefore
,
the findings of this study are highly congruent with the concept of career development.Imp1ication of This Study
Based on the premise that career education obviously includes 也cupational information and that career awareness is the first phase of career development, the findings of this study yield the following implications:
1. lt is n也.essary to provide a wide variety of ∞.cupational information for elementary and junior high sch∞1 students in order to enrich their knowledge for career develop-ment.
2. As bright students preferred investigative and artistic occupations and showed earlier differentiation in career development
,
it would be wise to provide them with more information and opportunities for jof development in these fields in time. It is, of course, also important to encourage the bright to development whole助me attitudes toward all useful work.3. While education or guidance can do very little to improve the intel1igence of the mentally retarded children, it is 5的11 important to increase their awareness in the area of daily living and personal-social affairs which they are capable of doing and then to provide them with better learning environment.
4. Since there is strong 揖x-role orientation in our society which might inhibit the de-velopment of individual's capacity for both sexes
,
it would be better at the beginning of educational career not to stress how society would perceive individual's role as masculine or feminine. Rather,
the individual as him or herself per se should beemphasized. The f出t concern of teachers or career counselors should be his or her ability and/or interest rather than his or her sexuality.
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Barclay, J.R. The Barclay Classroom Climate Invent，仰: A users 翩翩al. Lexington, Ky.:
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1974.Brunkan, R.J. Perceived parental attitudes and parental identification in relation to field of vocational choice. Journal
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Counseling PsycJ加'logy， 1965, 12, 39-47.Caplow, T. The Sociology
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W。她 Minnea戶lis， Minn.: The University of Minnesota Press, 1954.Clark
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H.F. E，仰仰nic T，他們， and Correct dc，ωrþati伽al 品istribution. New York: Teachers College Press,
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1951.Hansen, L.S.S. Born Eree: career development, sex roles, and social change. Paper
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Vocational Choiæ. Waltham, Mass.: Blaisdell Publishing Company,
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J.L. Making Vocational Choices: A T，加ory01
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D.E. The R砂'chology01
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1975.• 240 • 國立台灣師範大學教育心理學系 教育心理學報，民70 ， 14期， 231-240頁
