A preliminary examination of occupations and interests in Australia

Abstract

This paper analyses the interest content of all 1016 Australian occupations. These were classified according to vocational interests (i.e. outdoor, practical, scientific, creative, business, office, people contact, health, community, and computing), educational qualifications, and skill level, as well as in terms of the six Holland (RIASEC) types. Just over half of all occupations in Australia involve a practical interest. Creative interest was the least common occupational interest (9.2% of occupations). Some 80% of occupations covered more than one interest content, and in four instances, as many as six interests. Practical and people contact interests were negatively correlated (r = −.50). Occupational interest categories were consistent with the Holland types except that outdoor and practical interests in Australia did not correlate meaningfully with realistic. Occupational interests were related to educational requirements and skill levels. Outdoor and practical occupations were focused at the lower skill levels. Scientific and computing included the highest skill levels.

Keywords

Vocational interest occupations career interest classifications education skill level

A person’s interests have always been prominent as the cornerstone of a vocational guidance that linked people and jobs (Savickas, 1999). In 1909, Parsons (1909, pp. 45–46) combined a knowledge of occupations with a knowledge of self and what was described as ‘true reasoning’. In that system, one’s personal interests were linked to the world of work, and a vocational interest represented the psychological state of a person (Renninger & Hidi, 2016). Moreover, individual interest has also been consolidated with components of intelligence and personality (Ackerman & Beier, 2003). Notwithstanding these viewpoints, interest can also be viewed as a shorthand summary of types of activity clusters (Kuder, 1977). This occupational side of interest represents the broad work content area, such as outdoor, practical, scientific, or creative occupations.

Some occupations such as biologist are described neatly by one content area (scientific), whereas others such as truck driver involve overlapping content areas (outdoor and practical interests). Furthermore, some occupations, such as valuer, encompass broad skill and qualification levels ranging from diploma through to degree, whereas others such as road traffic controller or cardiac surgeon involve only one educational level (respectively, no formal qualification and degree). Likewise, occupations can also be described in an overabundance of ways that can include the tasks involved, the aptitudes required, the inherent values, the environmental conditions, or the physical activities undertaken. It has never been clear how this diverse nature of the world of work is reflected in the occupational interest category label attached to occupations.

Career development theory has taken up the challenge of using interest to describe both people and occupations. For instance, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, which was developed in 1930, described occupations in terms of contact with data, people, and things (Prediger, 1981; U.S. Department of Labor, 1991/1998). In Australia, a set of job content factors was published as part of the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations Working Draft (Athanasou, 1984), but resource limitations prevented their inclusion in the first Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (Department of Employment and Industrial Relations and Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1987). There were attempts to resurrect the Australian classification with the development of 43 Key Occupational Descriptors, but this government initiative faltered (Pithers, Athanasou, & Cornford, 1996), and was replaced with the U.S. Department of Labor O*NET factors in Australia, which were delivered through the online Job Outlook occupational information database (Department of Employment, 2012).

There are just over 1000 Australian occupations at the lowest level in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). The conceptual basis for this national classification is largely that of skill level, which ranges from managers through professionals, to technicians and trades, on to community and personal service workers, as well as clerical and administrative workers, sales workers, machinery operators, and finally labourers. In addition to skill level, one also perceives an implicit or underlying content orientation.

Interest was implicit in the original Dictionary of Occupational Titles, with its ratings of contact with data, people, or things for every occupation in the US. Prediger (1981, 1982) developed this further and considered the world of work in terms of two dimensions: data versus ideas and people versus things. This framework was supported by Prediger and Swaney (2004), who analysed the Holland interest category ratings from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database. Nevertheless, without other research as a guide for this study of Australian occupations, it is considered a priori that the occupational content of the national classification is (a) heterogeneous; (b) diverse; (c) reflecting distinct patterns of correlation across content areas such as data versus ideas and things versus people dimensions; (d) consistent with vocational interest classifications such as that of Holland (1997), which was formulated on six vocational types (RIASEC) – realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional; and (e) that the content is linked to educational or skill levels.

Unlike almost all studies related to career development, this study investigates every Australian occupation rather than surveying a sample of individuals. It does so using an Australian interest classification system that includes 10 categories: outdoor, practical, scientific, creative, business, office, people contact, health, community, and computing. Occupations that fall into the categories include (a) outdoor – farmers, foresters, landscape gardeners, surveyors, and sportsmen/women; (b) practical – pilots, factory workers, technicians, builders, and engineers; (c) scientific – doctors, pharmacists, zoologists, chemists, veterinarians, and physicists; (d) creative – artists, photographers, signwriters, designers, composers, dancers, singers, musicians, actors, and writers; (e) business – lawyers, politicians, travel agents, shopkeepers, executives, and managers; (f) office – accountants, secretaries, office workers, receptionists, and bank clerks; (g) people contact – sales, teachers, nurses, and welfare workers; (h) health – physiotherapists, dentists, pharmacists, rehabilitation counsellors, radiologists, and aged care workers; (i) community – social workers, welfare workers, nurses, counsellors, and drug and alcohol workers; (j) computing – network engineers, programmers, software specialists, hardware engineers, statisticians, actuaries, and mathematicians. This classification system dated originally from 1989 and has found widespread use in Australia. It was adopted for the national career information system my future (Athanasou, 2009), became part of the Career Interest Card Sort (Athanasou & Hosking, 1995), and been the subject of further research (Bartlett, Perera, & McIlveen, 2016). The 10 groups provide a comprehensive coverage, but no claim is made that this is a perfect categorisation of occupations in Australia. It is estimated that the optimum number of categories is probably closer to 20 (Day & Rounds, 1997), but this many groups would make most systems unusable in typical career guidance settings as 10 categories are around the maximum cognitive load for most career guidance clients with typical ability levels.

This study examines the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations and addresses the following questions: (a) how many occupations are covered by each of the interest categories; (b) given that an occupation may involve more than one interest, how many interests apply to occupations; (c) what are the correlations among the interest categories; (d) is the occupational interest content related to the Holland (1997) typology; and (e) does interest correlate with educational level? These questions are inherently practical with implications for career guidance, but at the same time they further our theoretical understanding of occupational interest.

Method

For each of 1016 Australian occupations, each relevant interest content (outdoor, practical, scientific, creative, business, office, people contact, health, community, and computing) was coded as 1 and all remaining interests were coded 0. The educational qualification requirement was also determined and classified as degree, diploma, certificate, trade, other, or no formal qualification. Some occupations were allocated more than one interest category and more than one qualification.

Occupations in the classification have also been categorised in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations in terms of five skill levels. The skill levels incorporate both education and training. Skill level 1 includes at least a degree or five years of relevant experience. Skill level 2 covers diploma and associate diploma or three years of relevant experience. Skill level 3 is around a Certificate IV qualification or three years of relevant experience. Skill level 4 includes Certificate II or III (i.e. trade) or one year of relevant experience, and Skill level 5 are Certificate I qualifications or compulsory secondary education or some on-the-job training or no formal qualification (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005).

Where available, the Holland interest ratings from the Job Outlook website (Department of Employment, 2012) were located for each occupation and entered into the database. These ratings ranged from 0 to 100 for the six Holland interest types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. These ratings were derived in whole or in part from the O*NET system of the U.S. Department of Labor (2016). Further details of the analysis have been incorporated in the next section and in most instances were simple descriptive statistics such as proportions or product-moment correlations.

Results and discussion

This section provides results of the analysis of the database of occupations. The findings are presented in response to the five questions that were raised at the outset. The implications of the findings are also discussed.

How many occupations are covered by each of the interest categories?

This question addresses the popularity of different interests. Just over half of all occupations in Australia involve a practical interest, and the next most popular occupational interest is outdoor. Creative interest was the least common occupational interest and appeared in only 9.2% of all occupations. The breakdown according to interest across all occupations is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Distribution of occupations across interest categories.

These results have implications for the availability of careers. One inference from this finding is that someone with a practical interest has a much wider choice of careers than someone with a creative interest. In a sense, these findings represent the supply side of interests, whereas there is also a demand side. That is, the results do not necessarily reflect the extent of interest in the population (i.e. the demand). In 2009, the intersection between vocational interests and employment was investigated for 7477 users of the Career Interest Test, and it was concluded that work-related interests in people were fairly evenly spread across outdoor, practical, scientific, creative, business, office, and people contact activities. In contrast, employment in Australia was skewed towards business and practical activities (48.6%; Athanasou, 2009).

How many interests apply to occupations?

Laypersons might assume that for the most part an occupation tends to involve one major career interest. The work of John Holland (1997) with his three-letter codes, however, entrenched a system whereby occupations are defined usefully by a combination of interests.

Only around 20% of occupations were defined by one career interest, 36% required two major career interests, just over 30% required three interests, 11% were described by four interests, and four out of the 1016 (landscape architect, civil engineering draftsperson, sports development officer, sports official) were associated with six or more career interests. Overall, the results indicated that occupations require diverse combinations of interests. Naturally, this opens many occupational choices in career development that might not otherwise have been considered.

What are the correlations among the interest categories?

The correlations among the interest categories are of interest to see whether they are consistent with theoretical ideas about the ways in which interests might be organised. The matrix of correlations is provided in Table 1. Using the hexagonal arrangement of interest from Holland (1997) as a guide, negative correlations were expected between outdoor–practical and people contact–community, and between office–business and scientific, computing, creative, and health. The hypothetical relationship among the 10 interest categories and the data–ideas and people–things dimensions are plotted in Figure 2.

Table 1.

Intercorrelations among interests.

	Ou	Pr	Sc	Cr	Bu	Of	PC	He	Comm
Ou	–
Pr	.45	–
Sc	−.14	−.12	–
Cr	−.18	−.15	−.05	–
Bu	−.14	−.35	−.18	.19	–
Of	−.22	−.35	−.02	−.09	.42	–
PC	−.25	−.50	.12	−.06	.05	−.00	–
He	−.23	−.31	.47	−.12	−.20	−.18	.47	–
Comm	−.15	−.32	.01	−.03	−.10	.00	.52	.26	–
Comp	−.13	−.07	.41	−.01	.02	.20	−.20	−.03	−.13

Bu: Business; Comm: Community; Comp: Computing; Cr: Creative; He: Health; Of: Office; Ou: Outdoor; PC: People Contact; Pr: Practical; Sc: Scientific.

Figure 2.

The relationship of the interest categories to the data–ideas and people–things dimensions.

In examining the correlations among interest categories, two criteria were considered following Mount, Barrick, Scullen, and Rounds (2005). These were (a) the correlation between opposite interest types should be negative, and (b) the correlation should be greater than −.40. Nine out of the 12 proved to be negative, and only one was not statistically significant, viz.:

−.25 (p < .001) Outdoor and People contact

−.15 (p < .001) Outdoor and Community

−.50 (p < .001) Practical and People contact

−.33 (p < .001) Practical and Community

−.02 (ns) Office and Scientific

.20 (p < .001) Office and Computing

−.09 (p < .001) Office and Creative

−.19 (p < .001) Office and Health

−.19 (p < .001) Business and Scientific

.02 (p < .001) Business and Computing

.19 (p < .001) Business and Creative

−.21 (p < .001) Business and Health

From Table 1, outdoor and practical interests correlated 0.45, whereas practical and people contact were negatively correlated (r = −.50). Scientific correlated .42 with computing, and business was correlated with office interests (r = .43). People contact was correlated with health (r = .48) and community (r = .52). The results confirmed that some interest content (outdoor and practical, scientific and computing, business and office or people contact and community) is coherent. It falls along the lines of Holland’s circumplex arrangement. On the other hand, there is a diametrical, empirical opposition between categories such as practical versus people contact. This may reflect fundamental, underlying differences in occupational interest content.

Is the interest classification related to the Holland typology?

The specific relationships between the career interest categories and the six Holland types are documented in Table 2. The career interest classification is broadly consistent with the relevant Holland typology. For example, scientific interest correlated .70 with investigative, creative correlated .66 with artistic, business correlated .64 with enterprising, office correlated .49 with conventional, and people contact correlated .72 with social. Health had a dual relationship of .51 with social and .44 with investigative. Community correlated .58 with social, and computing correlated .36 with investigative.

Table 2.

Correlation between interest categories and the relevant Holland types.

	Ou	Pr	Sc	Cr	Bu	Of	PC	He	Comm	Comp
Realistic	.08	.08	−.03	−.03	−.06	−.05	−.05	−.02	−.03	−.01
Investigative	−.18	−.19	.70	−.10	−.17	−.01	.17	.43	.04	.36
Artistic	−.17	−.19	−.07	.66	.16	−.07	−.01	−.11	.12	−.06
Social	−.20	−.48	.11	−.04	−.05	−.12	.72	.50	.57	−.29
Enterprising	−.03	−.36	−.15	.09	.63	.39	.19	−.12	.01	−.02
Conventional	−.13	−.13	−.12	−.15	.25	.48	−.10	−.20	−.08	.16

Bu: Business; Comm: Community; Comp: Computing; Cr: Creative; He: Health; Of: Office; Ou: Outdoor; PC: People Contact; Pr: Practical; Sc: Scientific.

The two exceptions to this pattern of direct relationships were outdoor and practical interests, which did not correlate meaningfully with realistic. On the other hand, they correlated negatively and substantially with social, which is located diametrically opposite to realistic types. There is a different perception in Australia of realistic interest as comprising outdoor, mechanical, practical, technical, and engineering activities. Problems with the realistic category in Australia have been documented previously (Lokan & Taylor, 1986). Rounds and Tracey (1996) also questioned the cross-cultural relevance of the Holland RIASEC model across 18 countries.

Do the interests correlate with educational levels?

There are two ways in which to consider the relationship between interest and educational level. The first is to consider which educational category dominates an interest classification. Table 3 summarises the mean scores of the interests for each educational level. In this instance, the mean values in each row are being examined. Outdoor interest is dominated by other qualifications and no formal qualifications. Practical interests are dominated by trade qualifications and no formal qualifications. Scientific interest is mainly associated with degree level qualifications. Creative interests are spread fairly evenly across all the qualifications. Business interests are related to degree, diploma, and other qualifications. Office interests comprise certificate, diploma, and some degree levels. People contact interest is spread across degree, diploma, and certificate level. Health is mainly degree and diploma. Community is linked with degree, certificate, and diploma. Finally, computing is mainly degree and diploma.

Table 3.

Mean scores of interests for each educational level.

Interest	Degree	Diploma	Certificate	Trade	Other	Nil
Ou	.20	.25	.32	.26	.48	.50
Pr	.30	.35	.36	.96	.55	.74
Sc	.47	.41	.26	.06	.08	.03
Cr	.18	.08	.04	.11	.12	.01
Bu	.51	.44	.39	.09	.46	.29
Of	.34	.36	.40	.06	.25	.16
PC	.39	.42	.37	.02	.24	.17
He	.25	.23	.13	.00	.03	.00
Comm	.20	.17	.19	.02	.11	.06
Comp	.27	.22	.07	.03	.10	.04

Bu: Business; Comm: Community; Comp: Computing; Cr: Creative; He: Health; Of: Office; Ou: Outdoor; PC: People Contact; Pr: Practical; Sc: Scientific.

Another way of inspecting Table 3 is to consider each column of values. This determines which interest category featured most in each educational level. For degrees, it was business and science; for diplomas it was business, people contact, and science; for certificate level, it was office and business; for trade qualifications it was exclusively practical; for other qualifications it was practical also; and for no formal qualification it was mainly practical followed by outdoor. This means that interest is not entirely independent of educational level, such as in the case of practical interests with trades or scientific interest with degrees.

The relationship between educational level and interest may also be looked at from the general perspective of the five skill levels attached to each occupation in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations. Correlations between the skill level and ratings are summarised in Table 4. The positive correlations indicate that a lower skill level is related to the interest. The pattern of correlations is in broad agreement with the findings in Table 3. Outdoor and practical occupations are focused at the lower skill levels. Scientific and computing include the highest skill levels.

Table 4.

Correlation between interest and skill level.

Interest	Correlation with skill level
Ou	.25
Pr	.40
Sc	−.46
Cr	−.22
Bu	−.29
Of	−.23
PC	−.20
He	−.29
Comm	−.17
Comp	−.34

Bu: Business; Comm: Community; Comp: Computing; Cr: Creative; He: Health; Of: Office; Ou: Outdoor; PC: People Contact; Pr: Practical; Sc: Scientific.

Conclusions

The findings from this study paint a unique Australian picture of the occupational landscape. For instance, the dominance of practical and outdoor interest in Australian occupations has implications for the range of careers available to people. On the other hand, the fact that creative interest was the least common occupational interest implies limitations for those persons with artistic, literary, or musical interests. Given that there are large individual differences in interest it means that many people are excluded from large sectors of their preferred world of work because their preferences do not match the available occupations.

The findings also highlighted the complexity of the content of occupations. For the most part, occupations involved heterogeneous interests. Just over 80% were multifaceted in nature, that is, they combined more than one interest category. In terms of career exploration this means that any narrow thinking about likely career options can be broadened. For example, a scientific interest is relevant to physics and chemistry but also relevant to livestock farming, engineering, or mining, as well as traditional science careers.

There was confirmation that the relationships between the interest categories were consistent with the hexagonal arrangement of interest proposed by Holland (1997). There were large and statistically significant correlations between opposite interests on the Holland hexagon. This is relevant for interest exploration. It is a straightforward matter for counsellors when someone’s work interests match the typical configuration (e.g. a combination of business, office, and computing), but there are also times when a valid, idiosyncratic pattern of interest (e.g. outdoor and people contact interests) may need to be explored meaningfully. Furthermore, the interest classifications correlated meaningfully with the corresponding Holland types (e.g. scientific with investigative, creative with artistic, business with enterprising, office with conventional, people contact with social). There were exceptions to this correspondence, namely the outdoor and practical interests, which did not correlate meaningfully with the realistic category. The reasons for this are not abundantly clear, but it may reside in the fact that the outdoor and practical categories embody a different cultural perspective in Australia.

For the student of human interests, there was clear evidence that occupational interest embodies educational qualifications and skill levels. For instance, a scientific interest was dominated by occupations that required a degree, whereas outdoor interest was related mainly to other qualifications or no formal qualification. Although a personal interest revolves around preferences, likes or dislikes and attraction, the object of a person’s interest – which in this study is an occupation – combined content and skill level. Although interest is conceptually different from ability there were links between educational achievement (or skill level) and some interests (Ackerman & Beier, 2003). This overlap between interest and ability is likely to create difficulties in the pure assessment of interest and its use in career exploration. One’s preferences may be contaminated in part by one’s scholastic aptitude.

This study investigated the nature of occupations form the standpoint of interest but the focus was clearly different from that of most other career development research, which of necessity has used samples of individuals rather than the intensive study of occupations. Of course, there are limitations in the approach that was adopted and no claim is made that the coverage is complete. For a start, the official classification covers occupations and not necessarily the many thousands of job titles attached to occupations. Nor was the analysis weighted for the number of persons in an occupation. Each occupation was given equal weighting in the findings, whereas common occupations such as truck driver or sales assistant were under-represented quantitatively. It is also a valid objection to state that the classification is a priori in nature and that its consistency should be established independently (e.g. inter-rater reliability). Notwithstanding this limitation, the study was built upon a classification that is quintessentially Australian, rather than one adopted from elsewhere. Additionally, the classification has been in use in one form or another for some 40 years, and in this study its categories were clearly independent, with a mean intercorrelation of −.03.

This foray into the nature of occupations is far from complete and will be complemented by further work that investigates other aspects of occupations such as the aptitudes required, the literacy and numeracy skills, and the physical requirements. The aim is to provide a more complete understanding of what it means to be an occupation. For the moment, one can conclude that our occupations are heterogeneous and unique in their content, there are substantive overlaps in content, occupations tend to embody multiple content areas, and the content is linked to skill levels. It is not clear that the occupational side of interest (i.e. the object of a person’s interest) is entirely comparable with the psychological state of personal interest.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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