A Study on Vocational Interests of College Students ―Interest for Work Activity and Job Groups―

The purpose of this study was to investigate the structure of vocational interests as reflected in interest in ventories, with a view to examining whether vocational interests could be assessed in correspondence with the perception of work activity characteristics. Two types of questionnaires on vocational interests were administered to male and female college students. The first consisted of 30 items assessing the interests in work activity characteristics such as objects of activities and activity functions. The second consisted of 50 items assessing the interests in various. job groups. Replies were collected from 922 students. The principal component analysis of the replies from the respondents revealed eight factors as to work activity characteristics. They included four factors relating to the objects of activities (things / mechanical, specified people, unspecified people and information) and two factors relating to work activity functions (mental and physical). The configuration of these work activity characteristics factors in two-dimensional space was compatible with Prediger's two-dimensional map (with axes, people / things and data / ideas) for the female samples but not for the male samples. Regarding interests on job groups, 10 factors could be extracted including production / construction, professional / technological, sales / service and others. The results of stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that these perceived work activity characteristics contributed significantly to forming the respondents' interests in different job groups