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This report presents the Self-Directed Career program, an inexpensive program designed to provide vocational guidance to all high school students, college students, and adults who desire it. The report discusses the need for such a program, the costs involved, the materials required, and how to use them. Appendix A provides some of the basic and supplementary materials, plus source information for other materials. Appendix B provides suggestions for evaluation techniques that counselors can apply to evaluate the success of the program. (Author)

After describing some current problems in vocational guidance and summarizing relevant knowledge and theory in the field, this paper presents some practical plans, materials, and ideas for providing more useful vocational assistance to people of all ages. The paper reviews such prominent vocational guidance approaches as vocational information and guidance systems, special programs for special populations, curricular materials, career education, and assorted assessment devices. The author believes that the understanding of careers requires both organizational and developmental strategies and models as bases for intervention. He employs student assessment, environmental assessment, and environmental redesign to formulate a high school vocational program with the following components: (1) placement and work experience service; (2) translation service; (3) environmental design service; (4) trouble-shooters; and (5) staff relationships. This plan can be easily modified for other age groups. (Author/LAA)

This report deals with the origin, development, verification, and revision of an occupational classification. John L. Holland ("The Psychology of Vocational Choice," 1966) proposed an a priori occupational classification of six categories: realistic, intellectual, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. These classes were defined in terms of the six Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) scales having the same names. Holland calculated a profile of VPI means for 4-year college students with specified occupational plans. An occupation's coded profile defined an occupation's place in the classification. In developing this revised classification, 20,313 2-year college students were added to Holland's sample of 4-year college students; data for some employed adults were also included. In contrast to Holland's classification, in which the arrangements of subgroups within a major class had no special meaning, here the major classes and subclasses were arranged according to a hexagonal model that indicated inter- and intra-class relationships. Student occupational aspirations were arranged within the model according to their psychological relatedness. The classification has potential applications for vocational guidance, industrial personnel work, and for research in education, psychology, and sociology. (MB)

This occupational classification for practical and theoretical use in vocational guidance, occupational research, vocational education, and social science rests upon a theory of personality types and includes 431 common occupations which comprise about 95 percent of the United States labor force. Each of the classification's six main classes (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) includes five to sixteen subclasses. Within each subclass, occupations are arranged according to the number of years of general educational development required to perform them. The arrangement of main classes and subclasses is defined empirically and is consistent with the classification's theoretical base. The arrangement of classes also makes it possible to estimate the psychological relatedness among occupations. The construction of the classification, an evaluation of its usefulness, and some illustrations of its potential practical value are outlined. (Author/SB)

Beginning with a brief summary of the need for practical vocational guidance systems, the author explains his Self Directed Search for Educational and Vocational Planning (SDS), which was developed to provide a cheap, practical, vocational guidance system having a high degree of scientific validty and client effectiveness. The SDS is a self-administered, self-scored and self-interpreted vocational counseling tool which contains an assessment booklet and a classification booklet, both of which are products of a theory of personality types and environmental models. The development of the SDS is summarized. An informed evaluation based on the use of the SDS with 5,000 widely divergent subjects suggests that: (1) 50% of those taking it like it; (2) others are troubled by the results and could use couseling; (3) the SDS is applicable to a wide age range; and (4) the SDS has the desirable characteristics of immediacy, self-direction, completeness, independence, personal development and safeguards. The conclusion suggests some beneficial side-effects of the SDS. (TL)

THE PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF A STUDENT'S EXPRESSED VOCATIONAL CHOICE WAS COMPARED WITH THE PREDICTIVE VALIDITY OF HIS SCORES ON A VOCATIONAL PREFERENCE INVENTORY. THE DATA FOR THE STUDY WAS FURNISHED BY TWO AMERICAN COLLEGE SURVEYS. STUDENTS FROM TWO NATIONWIDE SAMPLES OF 28 COLLEGES WERE POLLED FOR THEIR VOCATIONAL CHOICES AND WERE GIVEN THE SIXTH REVISION OF THE VOCATIONAL PREFERENCE INVENTORY. EIGHT MONTHS OR A YEAR LATER, THEY WERE POLLED AGAIN FOR THEIR VOCATIONAL CHOICES. VOCATIONAL CHOICES WERE CATEGORIZED ACCORDING TO A SIX CATEGORY CLASSIFICATION SCHEME WHICH CODED 99 VOCATIONS INTO THESE CLASSES--REALISTIC, INTELLECTUAL, SOCIAL, CONVENTIONAL, ENTERPRISING, AND ARTISTIC. RESULTS INDICATE THAT ASKING THE STUDENT ABOUT HIS VOCATIONAL CHOICES OR ASKING HIM ABOUT HIS VOCATIONAL INTENTIONS AND ROLE ARE ALMOST TWICE AS EFFICIENT AS THE VOCATIONAL PREFERENCE INVENTORY IN PREDICTING VOCATIONAL CHOICE. THE STUDY SUGGESTS THAT INTEREST INVENTORIES SHOULD BE USED WITH GREATER DISCRIMINATION. (WR)

The validity of some theoretically derived vocational diagnostic signs was examined to learn if a person's self-knowledge, occupational knowledge, and decision-making ability were predictable. The positive results imply some practical applications and the need for further theoretical investigation. (Author)

The authors present a typology for understanding how people make career choices, become vocational mature, and adjust their occupational choice to their particular life style. Practical implications for vocational assistance by counselors are also presented. (Author/HLM)

Paper materials and computer programs have great potential for explicating the vocational treatment process. Unlike counselors, they come in standard models which do not vary from day to day. The next steps should be to dissect what special aspects of these impersonal modules are most responsible for their effects. (Author)

Describes some of the current problems of vocational guidance, summarizes relevant knowledge and theory in the field, and offers some practical plans for a coordinated, theoretically compatible group of vocational programs, services, and experiences for a high school. (Author/JM)

This article proposes a general perspective for thinking about sex bias in the delivery of vocational guidance in order to suggest revisions in current practices and social actions as well as new directions for research. Biases in employment practices, media, or curricular materials are not dealt with. (Author/RP)

THE AMERICAN COLLEGE SURVEY WAS USED TO ASSESS 12,432 COLLEGE FRESHMEN FROM 31 INSTITUTIONS ON 43 SCALES. FOR EACH VOCATION SELECTED BY 10 OR MORE STUDENTS, THE MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION WERE COMPUTED FOR 117 STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS. THE VOCATIONS WERE CATEGORIZED INTO 13 AREAS, AND SUMMARIES OF STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS IN EACH AREA WERE PREPARED. THE DESCRIPTIONS OF STUDENTS SEEKING DIFFERENT VOCATIONS IMPLY THAT/ (1) STUDENTS SEEK VOCATIONS WHICH ARE APPROPRIATE FOR THEIR INTERESTS, VALUES, AND SPECIAL TALENTS, (2) VOCATIONAL DECISIONS DEPEND UPON MANY STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS, (3) THE REPORT MAY BE VALUABLE TO STUDENTS WHO CANNOT USE THE SERVICES OF GUIDANCE WORKERS, AND (4) THERE IS PROBABLY A CLOSE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE CHOICE OF MAJOR FIELD AND CHOICE OF VOCATION. THE PRESENT STUDY MAY BE LIMITED BY THE FACT THAT THE STUDENTS ARE ASPIRANTS, RATHER THAN EMPLOYEES, IN THE VARIOUS VOCATIONS. FURTHER RESEARCH EFFORTS ARE PLANNED TO/ (1) DEVELOP PSYCHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES, (2) LEARN HOW STUDENTS WHO PERSIST IN A FIELD DIFFER FROM THOSE WHO LEAVE IT, (3) DETERMINE THE PREDICTIVE VALIDITIES OF THE ASSESSMENT DEVICES USED IN THIS STUDY, AND (4) DETERMINE THE INFLUENCE OF COLLEGE CLIMATES UPON A STUDENT'S VOCATIONAL CHOICE. THIS DOCUMENT IS AN ACT RESEARCH REPORT, NO. 4, JUNE 1965. (PR)