A study of the relationship of level of vocational identity and degree of congruence between expressed and measured vocational interests of engineering students aspiring to managerial or technical careers

The study investigated an hypothesized relationship between level of vocational identity and degree of congruence between expressed and measured vocational aspirations of a nonrandom sample of 182 juniors and seniors majoring in electrical and mechanical engineering at The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Vocational identity was measured with the Vocational Identity Scale of the My Vocational Situation, The Self-Directed Search was used to capture measured vocational aspirations and expressed aspirations were captured with the Engineering Aspirations Checklist, an instrument based on a model of engineering occupations developed for the study and assigned three-letter codes based on John Holland's (1985a) typology of vocational personalities and work environments.; Results did not support the hypothesis. While the model of engineering occupations developed for the study appeared to be a useful way of classifying engineering occupations, the codes assigned to the production and management categories appeared to be erroneous. While students aspiring to production careers appeared to be a cohesive group, students aspiring to management were more diverse in terms of personality type, indicating a possible dichotomous orientation towards Enterprising or Investigative occupations among students in this group. Analyses of Variance indicated that vocationally undecided students were significantly lower in level of vocational identity than students aspiring to management. Analyses of Variance indicated no significant differences in level of vocational identity for demographic groups, however, a two-tailed t-test indicated that Asians were significantly lower in level of vocational identity than Caucasians. Implications and suggestions for further research are included.