Overview

Purpose: To assess vocational interests both qualitatively and quantitatively.

For: Average range or above in terms of general reasoning and literacy.

Length: Untimed (usually 10 to 20 minutes).

Format: Pen and paper.

Materials: Administration manual, occupations finder, technical digest, questionnaire booklet, chart profile sheet.

Vocational interests are the best criteria to us for career exploration. In completing the questionnaire test takers are asked to rate six work related categories - work activity preferences, work skills, occupational preferences, thinking styles, work environments and self-description. This provides a comprehensive coverage of the vocational interest domain.

In relation to the other forms of the OSI, the OSI-1 has the advantage of covering the broadest range of the facets of vocational interests. Users often indicate that they like to be able to focus on specific items and therefore find the large number OSI-1 items very helpful.

OSI-1 users when surveyed indicated that they valued the fact that the inventory can be given to some clients to complete and score for themselves.

Eight broad interest categories are assessed across these six work related categories:

1. Technological
2. Nature
3. Scientific
4. Culture
5. Entertainment
6. Helping
7. Persuasive
8. Organising

Obtained scores are used to generate an OSI Code which is then related to equivalent occupations with similar codes. In this way a variety of occupational options can be listed for the test taker to consider.

Current research findings suggest that the OSI-1 is both a reliable and valid measure of vocational interests. In terms of its content validity the items of the OSI-1 were derived from the occupational descriptions contained in the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO), thus it has particular relevance to the Australian labour market. Similarly the occupation listed in the Occupations Finder are derived from ASCO and from an ongoing monitoring of Australian newspapers.

The materials provided cover the theoretical basis of the questionnaire, technical data, illustrative case studies, a comprehensive listing of occupations and detailed descriptions of the dimensions measured for interpretation purposes.