Validity of the ACT Interest Inventory for Minority Group Members

VALIDITY OF THE ACT INTEREST INVENTORY FOR MINORITY GROUP MEMBERS Prepared by the Research and Development Division The American College Testing ProgramACT, a nonprofit organization, is an Equal Opportunity Employer.© 1976 by The American College Testing ProgramAll rights reserved. Printed in the United States of AmericaFor additional copies write:ACT PublicationsThe American College Testing Program P.O. Box 168, Iowa City, Iowa 52240(Check or money order must accompany request.) Price: $1.00Order No. 4-7-72 ABSTRACTHow appropriate is the ACT Interest Inventory for use with minority group members? Data from 2,280 college seniors (1,237 males and 1,043 females) representing black, native American, oriental American, Spanish-surnamed American, and white ethnic groups were analyzed to determine whether the ACT Interest Inventory could classify minority group students as accurately as white students into appropriate educational major groups. In addition, the structure of measured interests, as indicated by the intercorreiations of the six ACT Interest Inventory scales, was compared across the white and minority samples. For most minority groups, the percentage of clean hits was as high as or higher than the percentage for the white sample. With one exception, native American males, the interest structure was also highly similar for white and minority samples. These data suggest the ACT Interest Inventory is appropriate for use with minority group members. VALIDITY OF THE ACT INTEREST INVENTORY FOR MINORITY GROUP MEMBERSRichard R. Lamb1Minority youth seeking higher education are among those who might profit from the use of in­terest inventories. Compared with their white peers, they are less likely to have had significant ex­posure to adults in professional level occupations. Their secondary school background is less likely to have emphasized planning for careers which re­quire college training. Thus, the self-awareness and career suggestions gained from inventory results could be particularly important to these young per­sons.It is not clear, however, that interest inventories yield useful results for minority groups. Inventories currently in use have been developed and validat­ed using samples composed primarily of white, middle-class Americans. Conceivably, interest in­ventory results for individuals with different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds may not have the same meaning. Thus, one may logically question the appropriateness of using interest inventories with minority groups.Unfortunately, in contrast to the voluminous research on the appropriateness of using aptitude measures with minority groups, there has been little research on this topic. The few available studies typically focus on black males. Early research re­ported by E. K. Strong (1943, 1952,1955) provided preliminary support for the usefulness of interest inventories with black populations. The interests of black college students in nursing and medicine and of black lawyers and life insurance agents were found to be similar to those of their white counter­parts. Black and white male physicians did not have similar interests, however. Recent research with black males supports Strong’s findings. Borgen and Harper (1973) compared the predictive validity of the SVIB for a sample of 79 black National Achieve­ment Scholarship winners and 780 white NationalMerit Scholarship winners. These college seniors had taken the SVIB as entering freshmen. The ability of the SVIB to predict career choice was compared for the black and white samples. Little difference in criterion-related validity was found for the two samples.Similar findings were reported by Whetstone and Hayles (1975). Concurrent validity of the SVIB was compared for 69 black and 123 white college men by comparing the appropriateness of the interest profile with selected college major. Judgments of consistency were made for the occupational and basic scales, using primary patterns only, and primary and secondary patterns combined. Differ­ences between the black and white samples were small.Previous research has usually involved criterion- related evidence for only one or two minority groups, usually black males. One limitation of this type of research is that evaluation is dependent upon the particular m inority groups and occupational fields studied. Interest measures may be inaccurate for certain groups or fields, but such inaccuracies may not be detected if these fields or groups are not included in the analysis. Determin­ation of the structure of measured interests for various cultural groups is an alternati