Nicohwilliam

 

 

please see attachment for assessment results; APA format; cite relevant sources

 

Part I :After completing your assessment please write a 2-3 page reflection paper about your results. Here are some questions to get you started:

1. 1. 1. Were the results accurate?
      2. What did you learn about yourself from the results?
      3. What do the results mean for your future career path?
      4. How do your results fit with the work of a counselor?

 

 

Part II:When providing career counseling, the counselor helps the client explore potential career options. For this assignment you will use a Holland code and the O*Net database to determine a specific career to research. This assignment is the same process you could use with a client in real life.

For this part of your project, please write a paper that explores a career with the Holland code that is opposite your own. For example, if your assessment results showed that you are a RAS, you would find a career that a SCR would hold. To locate the opposite code, please see the Holland diagram in the textbook (2-1c). Please choose only one career to research and discuss. Note that the order of the letters in the Holland code are important and should not be switched. 

The paper should include information on training, prerequisite skills, education, common routes of entry into the field, such as apprenticeships or internships, typical incomes, and prospects for employment. Please include the occupational codes for this career as they are given on O*Net and the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Make sure to paraphrase well and cite all information you include.

Your reference list should include at least five sources, including the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, O*Net, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This should be formatted in paragraph form as a proper APA 7 style paper. The paper should be a minimum of 5 pages long. The page requirement does not include the title or reference pages.

 

 

Textbook Info: please see textbook info below

Career Counseling: A Holistic Approach

Authors: Vernon G. Zunker

Publisher: Cengage Learning

Publication Date: 2015-01-01

 

2-1cJohn Holland’s Typology

According to John Holland (1992), individuals are attracted to a given career because of their particular personalities and numerous variables that constitute their backgrounds. First, career choice is an expression of, or an extension of, personality into the world of work, followed by subsequent identification with specific occupational stereotypes. Congruence of one’s view of self with an occupational preference establishes what Holland refers to as the modal personal style. Central to Holland’s theory is the concept that one chooses a career to satisfy one’s preferred modal personal orientation. If the individual has developed a strong dominant orientation, satisfaction is probable in a corresponding occupational environment. If, however, the orientation is one of indecision, the likelihood of satisfaction diminishes. The strength or dominance of the developed modal personal orientation as compared with career environments will be critical to the individual’s selection of a preferred lifestyle. Again, the key concept behind Holland’s environmental models and environmental influences is that individuals are attracted to a particular role demand of an occupational environment that meets their personal needs and provides them with satisfaction.

A socially oriented individual, for example, prefers to work in an environment that provides interaction with others, such as a teaching position. On the other hand, a mechanically inclined individual would seek out an environment where his or her trade could be quietly practiced and where socializing is minimal. Occupational homogeneity, therefore, provides the best route to self-fulfillment and a consistent career pattern. Thus individuals who do not experience occupational homogeneity will have inconsistent and divergent career patterns. Holland therefore stressed the importance of self-knowledge in the search for vocational satisfaction and stability. From this frame of reference, Holland proposed six kinds of modal occupational environments and six matching modal personal orientations. These are summarized in Table 2.1, which also offers representative examples of occupations and themes associated with each personal style.

Table 2.1

Holland’s Modal Personal Styles and Occupational Environments

Personal styles	Themes	Occupational environments
May lack social skills; prefers concrete vs. abstract work tasks; may seem frank, materialistic, and inflexible; usually has mechanical abilities	Realistic	Skilled trades such as plumber, electrician, and machine operator; technician skills such as airplane mechanic, photographer, draftsperson, and some service occupations
Very task-oriented; is interested in math and science; may be described as independent, analytical, and intellectual; may be reserved and defers leadership to others	Investigative	Scientific such as chemist, physicist, and mathematician; technician such as laboratory technician, computer programmer, and electronics worker
Prefers self-expression through the arts; may be described as imaginative, introspective, and independent; values aesthetics and creation of art forms	Artistic	Artistic such as sculptor, artist, and designer; musical such as music teacher, orchestra leader, and musician; literary such as editor, writer, and critic
Prefers social interaction and has good communication skills; is concerned with social problems, and is community service oriented; has interest in educational activities	Social	Educational such as teacher, educational administrator, and college professor; social welfare such as social worker, sociologist, rehabilitation counselor, and professional nurse
Prefers leadership roles; may be described as domineering, ambitious, and persuasive; makes use of good verbal skills	Enterprising	Managerial such as personnel, production, and sales manager; various sales positions, such as life insurance, real estate, and car salesperson
May be described as practical, well-controlled, sociable, and rather conservative; prefers structured tasks such as systematizing and manipulation of data and word processing	Conventional	Office and clerical worker such as timekeeper, file clerk, teller, accountant, keypunch operator, secretary, bookkeeper, receptionist, and credit manager

Source: Adapted from Holland (1985a,b, 1992, 1996).

Holland proposed that personality types can be arranged in a coded system (RIASEC theory) following his modal-personal-orientation themes such as R (realistic occupation); I (investigative); A (artistic); S (social); E (enterprising); and C (conventional). In this way, personality types can be arranged according to dominant combinations. For example, a code of CRI would mean that an individual is very much like people in conventional occupations, and somewhat like those in realistic and investigative occupations. Counselors and clients can use Holland’s Occupational Classification (HOC) system to identify corresponding Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) numbers for cross-reference purposes. The four basic assumptions underlying Holland’s (1992) theory are as follows:

1. In our culture, most persons can be categorized as one of six types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional. (p. 2)
2. There are six kinds of environments: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional. (p. 3)
3. People search for environments that will let them exercise their skills and abilities, express their attitudes and values, and take on agreeable problems and roles. (p. 4)
4. A person’s behavior is determined by an interaction between his personality and the characteristics of his environment. (p. 4)

The relationships between Holland’s personality types are illustrated in Figure 2.1. The hexagonal model provides a visual presentation of the inner relationship of personality styles and occupational environment coefficients of correlation. For example, adjacent categories on the hexagon (e.g., realistic and investigative) are most alike, whereas opposites (e.g., artistic and conventional) are most unlike. Those of intermediate distance (e.g., realistic and enterprising) are somewhat unlike.

Figure 2.1Holland’s Model of Personality Types and Occupational Environments

Source: From “An Empirical Occupational Classification Derived from a Theory of Personality and Intended for Practice and Research,” by J.L. Holland, D.R. Whitney, N.S. Cole, and J.M. Richards, Jr., ACT Research Report No. 29, The American College Testing Program, 1969.

Holland’s hexagonal model introduces five key concepts. The first, consistency, relates to personality as well as to environment. He suggests that some personality and environmental types share some common elements; for instance, artistic and social types have more in common than do investigative and enterprising types. What he is suggesting is that the closer the types are on the hexagon, the more consistent the individual will be. Therefore, high consistency is seen when an individual expresses a preference for adjoining codes such as ESA or RIC. Less consistency would be indicated by codes RAE or CAS.

The second concept is differentiation. Individuals who fit a pure personality type will express little resemblance to other types. Conversely, those individuals who fit several personality types have poorly defined personality styles and are considered undifferentiated or poorly defined.

Identity, the third concept, describes those individuals who have a clear and stable picture of their goals, interests, and talents. In the case of environments, identity refers to the degree to which a workplace has clarity, stability, and integration of goals, tasks, and rewards. Thus individuals who have many occupational goals have low identity.

The fourth concept, congruence, occurs when an individual’s personality type matches the environment. Social personality types, for example, prefer environments that provide social interaction, concerns with social problems, and interest in educational activities. In reviewing the major studies investigating this concept, Spokane (1985) and Dumenci (1995) concluded that research did support the theory that congruence is highly related to academic performance and persistence, job satisfaction, and stability of choice.

Finally, Holland’s model provides a calculus (the fifth concept) for his theory. Holland proposed that the theoretical relationships between types of occupational environments lend themselves to empirical research techniques. In essence, further research will provide counselors and clients with a better understanding of Holland’s theory as changes in work environments occur.

Holland emphasized the importance of self-knowledge as well as occupational knowledge because he believed critical career judgments are drawn partially from an individual’s occupational information. The importance of identification with an occupational environment underscores the significance of occupational knowledge in the career choice process. Knowledge of both occupational environment and corresponding modal personal orientations is, according to Holland, critical to appropriate career decision making.

In the process of career decision making, Holland postulated that the hierarchy or level of attainment in a career is determined primarily by individual self-evaluations. Intelligence is considered less important than personality and interest. Furthermore, the factor of intelligence is subsumed in the classification of personality types; for example, individuals who resemble the investigative type of modal personal orientation are generally intelligent and naturally have skills such as analytical and abstract reasoning.

According to Holland, the stability of career choice depends primarily on the dominance of personal orientation. Putting it another way, individuals are products of an environment that greatly influences their personal orientations and eventual career choices. Personality development, however, is a primary consideration in Holland’s career typology theory of vocational behavior.

Holland’s theory is primarily descriptive, with little emphasis on explaining the causes and the timing of the development of hierarchies of the personal modal styles. He concentrated on the factors that influence career choice rather than on the developmental process that leads to career choice. Holland’s early theory was developed from observations made on a population of National Merit Scholarship finalists. He later expanded the database to include a wider sample of the general population. His research has been extensive and longitudinal. Holland (1987a) compared his theories with developmental positions:

I find experience for a learning theory perspective to be more persuasive [than developmental views]. In my scheme, different types are the outcomes of different learning histories. Stability of type is a common occurrence because careers [types] tend to snowball over the life course. The reciprocal interaction of person and successive jobs usually leads to a series of success and satisfaction cycles. (p. 26)

The RIASEC model has been tested with a wide range of ethnically diverse individuals, including those from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and with international groups. The results are mixed, that is, some studies support Holland’s theory and others indicate less support (Rounds & Tracey, 1996; Ryan, Tracey, & Rounds, 1996). There does appear to be enough positive evidence, however, to use instruments that are based on Holland’s codes with caution when testing culturally diverse populations (Gelso&Fretz, 2001).

Holland’s theory emphasizes the accuracy of self-knowledge and the career information necessary for career decision making. The theory has had a tremendous impact on interest assessment and career counseling procedures; a number of contemporary interest inventories present results using the Holland classification format. Its implications for counseling are apparent; a major counseling objective would be to develop strategies to enhance knowledge of self, occupational requirements, and differing occupational environments. According to Hartung and Niles (2000), Holland’s “practical experiences have influenced his emphasis of applying abstract concepts to counseling practice” (p. 7).

In sum, Holland’s theory has proved to be of more practical usefulness than any of the other theories discussed in this text. In addition, most of his propositions have been clearly defined, and they lend themselves to empirical evaluations. The impact of his scholarly approach to RIASEC theory has had and will continue to exert tremendous influence on career development research and procedures (Spokane, Luchetta, &Richwine, 2002).

Empirical Support for Holland’s Theory

Extensive testing of Holland’s theory suggests that his constructs are valid, and in fact the body of evidence is extremely large—almost overwhelming. Reviews of research are by Spokane (1996), Osipow and Fitzgerald (1996), Holland, Fritzsche, and Powell (1994), Holland, Powell, and Fritzsche (1994), and Weinrach and Srebalus (1990). Examples of other research topics include the interplay between personality and interests by Gottfredson, Jones, and Holland (1993) and Carson and Mowesian (1993); the studies of the hexagon by Rounds and Tracey (1993); and person-environment congruence and interaction by Spokane (1985) and Meir, Esformes, and Friedland (1994). The best current statements about exploring careers with a typology are by Holland (1996) and, comparing the NEO five-factor model with Holland’s typology, by Hogan and Blake (1999). According to Reardon and associates (2000), there are more than 500 studies on Holland’s typology. The original documents should be read for more details of current research projects. An update and discussion of Holland’s theory can be found in Spokane, Luchetta, and Richwine (2002).

Summary of Practical Applications

Applying Holland’s theory in career counseling requires a working knowledge of several inventories and diagnostic measures. Some of these instruments will only be introduced here, as more information is given about them in chapter 6.

1. The Vocational Preference Inventory(Holland, 1985b) has undergone several revisions.
2. My Vocational Situation(Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980) and Vocational Identity Scale (Holland, Johnston, & Asama, 1993) provide information about goals, interests, and talents.
3. The Position Classification Inventory(Gottfredson & Holland, 1991) is a job analysis measure of RIASEC environmental codes.
4. The Career Attitudes and Strategies Inventory(Gottfredson & Holland, 1994) measures work environment variables.
5. The Self-Directed Search(SDS) (Form R) (Holland, 1994a) is one of the most widely used interest inventories; it has more than 20 foreign language versions, can be administered by a computer that includes computer-based reports, and is available on the Internet. It has gone through several revisions and is continually studied for effectiveness. Accompanying the assessment booklet are several companion materials: The Occupations Finder (Rosen, Holmberg, & Holland, 1994b); the Dictionary of Educational Opportunities (Rosen, Holmberg, & Holland, 1994a); the You and Your Career Booklet (Holland, 1994b); a Leisure Activities Finder (Holmberg, Rosen, & Holland, 1990); and a Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes (Gottfredson & Holland, 1989). The Self-Directed Search and Related Holland Materials: A Practitioner’s Guide by Reardon and Lenz (1998) is a most helpful tool when using the SDS.

Figure 2.2 presents the steps for using the SDS assessment booklet and The Occupations Finder.

Figure 2.2Steps in using the SDS

Source: Adapted from John Hollands SDS report, PAR, Inc.