The Interest Structure of Native American College Students

Abstract

This study investigated the fit of Holland's vocational interest structure for samples of female and male Native American college students. The spatial arrangement of Native American interest types was expected to (a) be ordered in a R-I-A-S-E-C circular order, (b) approximate a hexagon, and (c) occupy a two-dimensional space. Strong Interest Inventory General Occupational Theme scores for 103 female and 73 male Native American college students first were submitted to a multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis. The MDS analysis allowed a visual test of the circular order and hexagonal hypotheses and a statistical test of the two-dimensional hypothesis. A randomized test of hypothesized order also was used to statistically test the circular order hypothesis. All of the statistical tests and visual analyses supported the circular order and two-dimensional hypothesis. The female interest data, however, were more consistent with Holland's proposed hexagonal interest structure than were the male interest data.