Computer Versus Counselor Interpretation of Interest Inventories: The Case of the Self-Directed Search

Interpretations of 100 career counselees' responses to the Self-Directed Search (SDS) were examined. The agreement between the scales (types) that were identified as relevant by the algorithm developed for this study and by 5 career counselors was as high as the agreement among the counselors (85%). The agreement between the counselors and Holland's 3-letter codes was lower (76%). In the 2nd study, insignificant correlations (r = .06 and -.03) were found between the counselors' judgments of the counselee's degree of interest crystallization and Holland's (1985a) measure of consistency, but their judgments were correlated (r = .41 and .45) with similarity within profile (an index of crystallization, Gati, 1985). In the 3rd study, various measures of the compatibility among the SDS's three major sections were found to be correlated with the counselor's judgements (.39 < r < .71). Implications for the interpretation of interest inventories are discussed.