THE USE OF API CAREER FACTORS AS HOLLAND OCCUPATIONAL TYPES

As a modern version of the 16PF, the Adult Personality Inventory (API) was designed to report scale scores that provided more information and were more useful to psychologists than the underlying 16 factors. This was accomplished by generating a set of 21 scales that are linear combinations of the original 16 factors. Six of the API scales have been labeled the Career Factors and may correspond to Holland's occupational types. The purpose of the present study was to help determine the extent to which the API Career Factors could indeed be employed as Holland occupational types. To make this determination, mean API profiles for various occupational groups were matched with occupational groups from an index of occupational codes provided by Holland and tested for profile congruency. The results indicated that there exists a good degree of congruence between the Holland occupational codes and the API Career Factors. It was concluded that, in general, the API Career Factors can be conceptualized as Holland occupational types and used accordingly.