Gender and Holland type as moderators of the validity and interpretive utility of the skills confidence inventory

Using a large national sample of employed adults, this study found minimal gender differences in self-efficacy for the Holland themes among women and men within 21 occupations, and within six Holland job families. For both women and men, evidence for the validity of the Skills Confidence Inventory, the measure of self-efficacy, indicated considerable predictive utility of the six General Confidence Themes for membership in one of the six Holland job families. However, some job family and gender differences in the relation of self-efficacy levels to probability of group membership were also observed. (C) 1998 Academic Press.