Vocational Personality Types in College Engineering Students in Relation to Academic Achievement

Abstract

This study explored whether and to what extent vocational personality types based on Holland (1994) correlate with and explain unique variance of academic success among 117 undergraduate civil engineering students by using the Self-Directed Search–Form R, 4th Edition. Findings indicated that the majority of participants’ 1st-letter code was Realistic (39.3%), 2nd-letter code was Investigative (24.8%), and 3rd-letter code was Social (21.4%), compared with Holland's 3-letter codes for civil engineering (Investigative, Realistic, Enterprising). The study also calculated the degree of congruence between personality type and occupational environment. For career counselors, the findings underscore the importance of using congruence scores to predict engineering students’ academic performance.