MOI Multi-method Objective Interests Test Battery

Application
Assessment of vocational interests based on the vocational interests theory of Holland (1997), for use with respondents aged 14 and over.

Theoretical background
J.L. Holland (1997) distinguishes between Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional interests. Drawing on this theory, which is widely utilised in both theory and practice (Proyer, 2007a; Rayman & Atanasoff, 1999), MOI operationalises the six interest dimensions in various different ways.
The test battery includes a verbal questionnaire, a non-verbal questionnaire, objective personality tests and a scale measuring vocational identify. The main purpose of these objective personality tests is to derive information on vocational interestsfrom observation of the testee’s behaviour in standardized working task situations (for details: Ortner et al., 2006; Proyer & Häusler, 2007). This kind of information is particularily useful if the respondent chooses not to reveal in his or her vocational interests or exhibits a low level of differentiation and weak vocational identity. However, high levels of vocational identify and of differentiation in the interest profile render the provision of this kind of additional information in the counselling situation unnecessary.

Administration
MOI consists of a verbal and non-verbal interest questionnaire, three objective personality tests (“Distractibility”, “Allocation”, “Tachistoscope”) and a scale measuring vocational identity.

Test forms
There are two test forms which can be used as pre-defined combinations of the subtests. The short form (S2) contains only the two subtests that measure vocational interests explicitly; the long form (S1) includes in addition the subtests for implicit measurement.The composition of the test battery can, however, also be altered manually.

Scoring
For all the subtests specific scores for the six interest dimensions are calculated. 
Across all the subtests administered, normed total scores are reported for the explicitly measured and implicitly measured interests. The data can be interpreted with reference either to a total norm or to intra-individual differences in interests.

Reliability
Depending on the scales used, the reliability coefficients of the questionnaire scales vary between 0.70 and 0.89. The reliability coefficients of the objective personality tests range from 0.64 to 0.92.

Validity
Higher correlations were found between the verbal and non-verbal questionnaire scales and corresponding scales taken from the General Interest Structure Test. The correlation between the self-report measures and the objective personality tests were lower as has been expected on the basis of the current research literature (cf. Ortner et al., 2006). Additionally, the correlations between the different MOI scales and measures of intelligence were in line with those usually reported in the literature. Taken together, these results support the construct validity of this measure. Furthermore, MOI subtests were found to be capable of identifying individuals studying different disciplines (restriction: R not represented).

Norms
A norm sample of N=452 is available; the data was collected at different centres in Austria and Switzerland.