The PreferenSort: A Holistic Instrument For Career Counseling

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We present the PreferenSort, a career counseling instrument that derives counselees' vocational interests from their preferences among occupational titles. The PreferenSort allows for a holistic decision process, while taking into account the full complexity of occupations and encouraging deliberation about one's preferences and acceptable trade-offs. We describe three validation tests: (a) comparing the vocational interests derived by the PreferenSort to those accumulated using Holland's Self-Directed Search (construct validity); (b) exploring the relations between the participants' derived interests and their field of study (concurrent validity); and (c) the degree of improvement in the prediction of the participants' field of study in the derived over the accumulated vocational interests (incremental validity). As hypothesized, by allowing for a holistic decision process, the PreferenSort explains the vocational interests of intuitive individuals better. These findings provide evidence that the PreferenSort is important as a supplementary counseling tool for individuals with an intuitive decision style-people who currently lack self-help counseling instruments.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)249-264
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Career Assessment
Volume21
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2013

Keywords

  • decision-making style
  • intuitive
  • vocational interests

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Applied Psychology
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
  • General Psychology

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