Prof. J.S.

Bhardwaj Lecture 3
Department of Education
C.C.S.University Meerut

SEMESTER IV
Paper OC 17: Guidance and Counselling

Dear M.Ed IV sem students

Our topic of Today’s discussion are :

 Personality inventories, Interest inventories, attitude scale

Let us disscuss the first one—

Personality Inventories
A personality inventory is a self-report inventory which is a type of psychological test in
which a person fills out a survey or questionnaire with or without the help of an investigator.
Personality inventories include questions dealing with situations, symptoms, and
feelings.
Personality Test Often by persons use the term personality to indicate the physical make up
of an individual. The term “Personality” however, signifies much more than simply the
physical looks of a person and has a very broad meaning. It includes the emotional,
motivational, inter-personal, attitudinal and even moral aspects of a person. some
researchers have included intelligence also as part of personality. Personality refers to a
unique combination of characteristics of an individual, which pre-disposes the person to
behave in a particular and consistent way.
Personality testing is necessary to achieve the following purposes.
• lt helps the students in proper educational and vocational choice. Personality plays an
important role in an individual, personal, educational and vocational adjustment and
success. It is, therefore, important to diagnose the individual’s personality pattern to see
whether he posses the traits which are likely to contribute significantly to his adjustment to
the course or career he is choosing.
 • It helps the individual in resolving emotional conflicts. Personality diagnosis becomes
essential when the difficulty the individual encounters in making proper adjustment with the
educational and occupational choices, lies in emotional conflict about which the client has
no knowledge. When the cause of the mental conflict is diagnosed, it may be possible for
him to solve his problem in his own way.
• It helps the clinical psychologist
Types of Personality tests are techniques designed to measure one's personality. They
are used to diagnose psychological problems as well as to screen candidates for college and
employment. There are two types of personality tests: self-report inventories and
projective tests.
 Self-report inventories involve having test-takers read questions and then rate how
well the question or statement applies to them.One of the most common self-report
inventories is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory or MMPI.
 Projective tests involve presenting the test-taker with a vague scene, object, or
scenario and then asking them to give their interpretation of the test item. One well-known
example of a projective test is the Rorschach Inkblot Test.
The most common methods include objective tests and projective measures peronality
 Objective Tests. ...
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. ...
 Neo Pi-R. ...
 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) ...
 16 PF. ...
 Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. ...
 Projective Measures. ...
 Rorschach Test

Interest inventories-
Interest Inventory. A test that determines a person's preferences for specific fields or
activities. An interest inventory is a testing instrument designed for the purpose of
measuring and evaluating the level of an individual's interest in, or preference for, a variety
of activities; also known as interest test.
Meaning of Interest:
An interest is a subjective attitude motivating a person to perform a certain task. It affords
pleasure and satisfaction. It results in curiosity towards the object of interest, enthusiasm to
be attached to the object, strength of will to face difficulties while engaged in the task of
one’s interest, a definite change in behaviour in the presence of the object characterised by
attention and concentration. Various definitions of interest. Guidance exports make a further
explanation of interest from the guidance point of view.
Jones states, “Interest is a feeling of likening associated with a reaction, either actual or
imagined to a specific thing or situation.”
Bingham defines: “Interest is a tendency to become absorbed in an experience and to
continue it, while an aversion is a tendency to turn away from it to something else.”
Types of Interest:
Jones mentions two distinct types of interests- extrinsic and intrinsic. The former are
pleasurable emotions connected with a purpose or goal of an activity. It may involve fame,
name, money, victory or such external motives of conduct.
But the latter are connected with the activity itself, being basic and real attraction without
any external motive, This intrinsic interest is continuous and permanent, even if the
immediate goal is reached. The extrinsic interest, dies as soon as the goal is reached.
Super and some other guidance experts have classified interests into:
(i) Expressed interest,
(ii) Manifest interest, and
(iii) Measured interest.
In the expressed interest the person expresses his personal likings through such sentences as
‘I love sports’. Although, it is the first source of knowing the interest of a person yet much
reliance cannot be based on it, as such expressions like permanency and are prone to vary
from time to time depending upon the maturity of the person.
Manifest interest is the interest that is not expressed but observed by others while the person
is engaged and absorbed in an activity. Newton forgot his meals while engaged in scientific
experiments.
The measured interest is the estimate and account of a person’s interest as revealed by some
psychological tests or interest inventories.
While knowing the interests of a person we can rely more on the manifest interest and the
measured interest rather than the expressed interest. But it is not always practicable to know
the manifest interest for want of frequent situations arrange able wherein the observer can
observe the manifestation. Hence measured interest is the usual source.
Types of Tools for Measuring Interest:
The tools for measurement of interest are of two types – formal and informal. The formal
methods are specialised and standardised measuring instruments such as interest inventories,
interest test batteries.
The informal methods include the person’s own statement, a record of his activities and
observation by the parents and the teachers. The former i.e., the informal methods are
usually supplemented by the informal methods.
Three notable formal methods universally employed are:
1. Strong Vocational Interest Blank,
2. Kuder Preference Record, and
3. Thustone’s Vocational Interest Schedule.
A brief description of each is given below:
1. Strong Vocational Interest Blank:
Prof. Strong of Stanford University California designed and standardised this check list. The
check list contains 400 separate items. It is presented to the individual and he is simply
asked to indicate whether he likes, dislikes or is indifferent, on a three point scale.
The test reveals the interest maturity of the individual, his masculinity and of femininity,
and his occupational level. The 400 items include 100 occupations, 49 recreations, 36 school
subjects, 48 activities and 47 peculiar interests. As such it is useful for both educational and
vocational guidance.
2. Kuder Preference Record:
This has been prepared by G. Frederic Kuder. This test covers a wider field, comprising of
nine separate scales of occupations, viz. mechanical, computational, scientific, persuasive,
artistic, literary, musical, social and clerical. Kuder presupposes three major interests viz.
mechanical, literary and artistic. So when the same task is presented to the subject, with
three related activities, the subject will select the activity that relates one of the three
interests that he possesses.
For instance, three choices are given about one item viz. building a bird house, writing
articles about birds and drawing sketches about birds. If the subject opts for the first, his
interest is mechanical. Another example is presented.
The subject is asked to select the activity that he would prefer the most, and the
activity he would prefer the least out of the following three:
(i) Visit an art gallery.
(ii) Browse in a library.
(iii) Visit a museum.
A triple activity regarding collections is:
(i) Collect autographs.
(ii) Collect coins.
(iii) Collect butterflies.
A detailed scoring system is employed for analysis and interpretation. A percentile of 75 or
above is considered significantly high. If a person goes beyond P 75 in any of the areas, all
the occupations in that area are attractive for him.
3. Thurston’s Vocational Interest Schedule:
This test has been devised by Thurstone. He administered a comprehensive test to 3400
college students who expressed their Likeness (L). Indifference (I) and Dislike (D) to each
of the items in the test.
He analysed the test scores and through the techniques of factor analysis, arrived at 8
factors of interest viz.;
(i) Commercial Interest,
(ii) Legal,
(iii) Athletic,
(iv) Academic,
(v) Descriptive,
(vi) Biological,
(vii) Physical Science,
(viii) Art.
Some less used interest tests are Hepner’s Vocational Interest Quotient and Lufburrow’s
Interest Blank. The latter is of the same design as Strong’s Blank. It gives eleven families
instead of nine, viz. Artistic, Commercial, Constructions, Industrial, Scientific, Humanistic
literary, Transpositional, Mechanical and Technical. Clecton’s vocational Interest Inventory
deal with 9 groups of occupations and contains 630 items.
The subject is to answer 40 questions and list his interests. There are two more inventories
which are specially prepared for women. Manson’s Occupational Interest Bank is for
guiding women. Stewart and Brainard have prepared specific Interest Inventories of types,
one each for girls, women, boys and men. Any type (say for girls) contains 20 groups of five
questions dealing with no different interests.
Limitation of Interest Inventories:
1. Some of the tests reveal ability rather than interest. But interest is not the same thing as
ability. So some tests are not fully valid or reliable.
2. The tests presuppose that the subject possesses a particular interest. But it can reveal the
interest that is present at the time of test, and not afterwards. The interests revealed may not
remain permanent. Moreover the interests are cultivable also. At the time of testing a
particular interest may not have developed fully, but it may develop afterwards. It has been
seen that some interests develop during the vocation.
3. The interest inventories reveal facts on the basis of the report given by the subject. The
accuracy of the report is still a problem. Some people do not reveal facts.
4. The questions in the inventories deal with certain types of activities, and not all these lead
to clear-cut vocations. Again, there is much overlapping between one activity and another.
An occupation is not one interest but a combination of activities or interests.
5. The predictictive side of the inventories have also been tested. On investigation Proctor
found that these have 25% permanence in school studies. Strong finds correlation with
future vocation as 0.75, i.e., less + 1.

Attitude Scale-
Attitudes are expressions of how much we like or dislike various things. We tend to
approach and seek out to be associated with things we like, we avoid, shun or reject things
we do not like. Attitude represent our evaluations and performance towards a wide variety
of objects, events, persons, and situations. The defining characteristics of attitudes is that
they express evaluations along the lines of liking-disliking, pro-anti, favouring -
disfavouring or positive - negative (Petty and Cacippo, 1981). By restricting the term
attitude to evaluation, we distinguish attitudes from beliefs or opinions. Attitude includes
certain aspects of personality as interests, appreciations and social conduct. Attitudes are
learnt, they are adopted. They have aspects as directions, intensity etc. In the following
section we will know how attitudes tested. Types of Attitude Scales Attitudes need to be
tested because our social life depends on some desirable attitudes. The success in certain
vocations also depends on some attitudes.
Attitudes can be tested through various techniques. Various scaling techniques have led to
the development of different types of attitude scales which provide quick and convenient
measure of attitudes. However, the ‘method of equal appearing intervals’ and ‘method of
 summative ratings’ have been extensively used in attitude or opinion research. The attitude
scales which are developed using these scaling techniques consists of a number of carefully
edited and selected items called ‘statements’. The method of ‘equal - appearing intervals’
was originally developed by Thurstone and Chave. The attitude score of an individual
obtained by this method has an absolute interpretation in terms of the psychological
continuum of scale value of the statements making up the scale. If this score falls in the
middle range of the psychological continuum, the attitude of the individual is described as
“neutral”. If it falls towards the favourable end of the continuum, it is described as
“favourable” and if it falls towards the unfavourable ends, it is described as “unfavourable”.
In the “method” of summated ratings developed by Likert, the item score is obtained by
assigning arbitrary weights of 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A),
Undecided (U), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) for the statements favouring a
point of view. On the other hand, the scoring weights of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are used for the
respective responses for statements opposing this point of view. An individual’s score on a
particular attitude scale is the sum of his rating on all the items. In addition to the above two
scales, there some more techniques, such as, Error Choice Technique, Free Response
Technique, Paired Comparisons, Opinion Polling or Surveying, diaries, autobiographic etc.
are used for testing attitude. Attitude scales are used to measure the degree of positive or
negative feeling associated with any slogan, person, institution, religion, political party etc.
Attitude scales are also used in public-opinion surveys in order to make some important and
crucial decisions. Educationists, for example, conduct opinion surveys to find out how
people feel about educational issues.
References:
 Sharma R. A. (2001) “Fundamentals of Guidance’s Counselling” R. Lall Book Depot, Meerut,
U.P.

 www.psychologydiscission.net

 M.A Edu.guide&coun.pdf

 Detshat.ac.in/nmeict-fiels(econtent development project fund by MHRD)

 Gupta Abha: guidance & counselling shatiya publication

 Egyankosh.ac.in