AISTR General Interest Structure Test - revised version

The AISTR is frequently used in career or academic counseling, because the results are easy to interpret and concrete careers are suggested for different education levels.

Application
The AISTR is a differential test for identifying educational or career interests, for use from the age of 14 onwards. It is therefore used primarily in educational and occupational counselling.

Theoretical background
According to Holland (1985) there are six fundamental personality orientations in our cultural milieu. Holland also postulates that each person searches for the environment that corresponds to his personality type and hence to his interests. If he succeeds, there is complete person/environment congruence. The AISTR measures this congruence between an individual and his or her environment. The test consists of 60 items, which measure the following six interest dimensions: practical and technical, intellectual and investigative, artistic and linguistic, social, entrepreneurial, and organizational and administrational interests.  The concept of congruence means that the test can be used to assign people to occupations on the basis of their different psychological characteristics.

Administration
After the instruction phase, the items are presented in succession on the screen. The respondent enters his answers on a five-point rating scale. It is possible to correct each item once and to omit individual items. All unanswered items are presented again at the end of the test, and respondents can choose whether to answer them or not.

Test forms
There is one test form with 60 items; it has been adapted for a number of different countries and languages.

Scoring
The raw scores for all scales and the response times for each item are calculated.
The following are provided:

1. a report for the test administrator with

• raw and standard scores on the six interest dimensions (with profile)
• Holland code (the three most prominent interest dimensions) and a list of occupations that are congruent with the Holland code (Z-S index)
• differentiation score for the six interest dimensions
• a hexagonal diagram of the interest dimensions

2.a report for the respondent with

• interest profile
• Holland code and a list of occupations that are congruent with the Holland code (Z-S index)
• differentiation score for the six interest dimensions

Reliability
Studies using the norm sample yielded internal consistencies (Cronbach’s a)for the interest scales of between r=0.79 and r=0.87. Test-retest reliabilities for the individual scales are between r=0.83 and r=0.96 for a test-retest interval of two days and between r=0.60 and r=0.75 for an interval of two years. Test-retest reliabilities are also available for intervals of three months, four months and one year.

Validity
Extensive studies of the validity of the AISTR have been carried out  and have shown among other things that the test has factorial validity, convergent validity and criterion validity.

Norms
The norms were obtained from a calibration sample of 2,496 young people aged between 14 and 21 drawn from the most important schools and training centres in Austria.