Personality factors influencing Bemidji State University industrial technology majors making heavy industrial construction career choices

The purpose of this study was to apply Holland's theory and gather information about Bemidji State University (BSU) construction management (CM) students, CM graduates, CM faculty, and the heavy industrial construction workforce for a greater understanding of students, the academic environment, and the heavy industrial construction environment. A secondary purpose was to help increase recruitment and retention of students within the CM emphasis of the Industrial Technology major at BSU, and provide support for development of curricula within the CM emphasis as it meets needs of the construction industry.;The study examined five research questions using Holland's Self-Directed Search (SDS) Form - R.: (1) What are the descriptors of the SDS summary codes of the present CM students? (2) What are the descriptors of the SDS summary codes of the CM graduates? (3) What are the descriptors of the SDS summary codes of the CM faculty? (4) What are the descriptors of the SDS summary codes of a similarly employed, non-BSU-affiliated group? And, (5) what if any, were the correlations between the groups?;The foundation of these descriptive analyses consisted of aggregated scores of SDS summary codes indicating the top three letter scores of Holland's RIASEC hexagonal categories for each individual participating in the study. Three-letter codes were computed for each of the subgroup's constituents. Aggregates of subgroup results were also examined for category-letter dominance within the three-letter code yielded for each subgroup participant. Primary emphasis was given to letters in the first position, which received the largest number of positive endorsements in a participant's results. Finally, an average coefficient of differentiation was computed for each subgroup.;The primary conclusion was the results of the Group Measures of Score Differentiation in which the Current BSU Students and the BSU Graduates in Industry had similar differentiation mean scores. While the BSU Faculty and Staff and the Non-BSU Graduates in Industry had similar differentiation mean scores. It was noted in the results that all subgroups were strong Realistic personalities as defined by Holland.;Recommendations were generated applying this information to the CM learning environments and for future workforce development in the heavy industrial construction industry.