Placing Occupations on Holland's Hexagon via Scores for Holland Types

This paper illustrates a procedure for using the interest scores of occupational group members to locate occupations on Holland's hexagon. The procedure locates occupations throughout the hexagon--not just at the six points. The Holland types are Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and Conventional (C). Score profiles for Holland's six types and current occupations were obtained from a sample of 3,612 4-year college alumni. The hexagon locations of 51 occupations pursued by these alumni were determined through the application of hexagon-based weights to their score profiles. The weights convert the profiles to scores on the data/ideas and things/people work task dimensions that underlie Holland's hexagon. Several applications of hexagon locations are described, including a Hexagon Congruence Index (HCI) that reports person-occupation congruence on a scale anchored to the hexagon. The HCI can be used with six-score profiles of Holland's types, three-letter codes, two-letter codes, high-point codes, or any combination of these reporting procedures. Four tables, 3 figures, 35 references, and an appendix describing statistical analysis procedures used in the study are included. (Author/NLA)