Measured vocational interests, expressed interests in college major, and interest congruence of college-bound women across time

The career development of women is influenced by several social and individual variables that affect career decisions and achievement including gender role socialization and the pressures of maintaining multiple roles in addition to career. Women are largely underrepresented in science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM) related fields and this lack of interest has been the focus of a significant portion of vocational psychology literature. Interest congruence, a concept central to the study of women\u27s vocational development, represents a theoretical and statistical formulation of the relation between measured vocational interests and expressed vocational intentions and it has been examined in relation to women\u27s career development. The current cross-sectional descriptive study includes a large-scale (n = 31,021) examination of trends in college-bound women\u27s measured vocational interests, expressed interests in college major, and interest congruence across a thirty-year interval (1974-2005) based upon women\u27s responses to the American College Testing (ACT) vocational and academic achievement assessments. This investigation also examines aspects of women\u27s mathematics achievement in relation to measured and expressed interest variables. In addition, this study uses and examines the Brown and Gore (1994) C-index as a statistical measure of congruence between expressed and measured interests. Multiple unique trends were found across time, across and within the six Holland career areas for measured and expressed vocational interests, as well as for the interest congruence of college-bound women. The descriptive trend findings lend support to existing literature regarding women\u27s career development and provide insight for future research directions