Adaptive Vocational Interest Diagnostic: Development and Initial Validation
Abstract
Recent research has demonstrated the validity of vocational interests for predicting both work and academic outcomes. As a result of these findings, a number of public and private organizations are now considering the use of vocational interest measures to help individuals make important employment and career decisions. This report describes the development of a new vocational interest measure known as the Adaptive Vocational Interest Diagnostic (AVID) for the U.S. Army. This measure was specifically developed to help Soldiers identify military occupational specialties (MOS) that match their interests and to predict their satisfaction and performance in those MOS. First, a review of the literature and analyses of existing military interest data were used to identify important interest dimensions that are relevant to U.S. Army MOS. Next, large pools of statements were developed to assess 20 basic interest dimensions and these statements were pretested on large samples of Army Soldiers to estimate item response theory (IRT) and social desirability parameters. Finally, a static version of the AVID was developed and used to collect initial validation evidence. The results of the initial validation indicated that the AVID can be useful for predicting important military outcomes and for differentiating between MOS.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1087269
Entities
People
- Christopher Nye
- Cristina D. Kirkendall
- Fritz Drasgow
- James Rounds
- Oleksandr S. Chernyshenko
- Stephen Stark
Organizations
- Drasgow Consulting Group