The four participants in this study were amongst the last four individuals referred to my private psychology practice for educational-vocational assessment following a personal injury. They ranged in age from 18 to 37 years.
All had completed the highest level of secondary schooling. The reading grade levels from the Wide Range Achievement Test-4 ranged from 6th grade to 11th grade. One had completed some post-school education to a certificate level; one had enrolled in the first year of a degree; and the remaining two had no formal post-school qualifications.
All participants had work experience, mainly at an elementary sales, service or clerical level. One was working full-time and one had a permanent part-time job. Vocational interests were described using the Career Interest Card Sort (Athanasou & Hosking, 2003) in a counterbalanced order prior to or following the case study. Only two nominated Creative as their principal vocational interest. The results are reported in a manner that preserves privacy and confidentiality and where necessary any demographic details have been randomly altered to maintain ethical standards of reporting.
Participants were presented with 50 courses on offer at a local community college. The courses are listed in Table 1 and had been categorised separately by the college in terms of their Holland type. A complete listing of the types is available from the author upon request.