VALIDATION OF THE VOCATIONAL ASSESSMENT PROTOCOL

Objective: To report the psychometric properties of the Vocational Ass essment Protocol (VAP), including estimates of its internal consistenc y reliability and construct and criterion-related validity. Design: VA Ps were completed on consecutive referrals of persons with a brain inj ury as they entered vocational evaluation programs at 20 nationally di stributed sites funded by state vocational rehabilitation agencies. Fo llow-up data on employment status and earnings were obtained 6 months after the completion of a VAP using a follow-up instrument designed fo r this purpose. Subjects: VAPs were completed for 149 subjects, with c omplete follow-up data obtained on 116. Subjects were typically male, single, white, injured in their late teens to early 20s, and had exper ienced closed head injuries with extended coma and/or amnesia duration s reported. At the time of referral, subjects were on average 6 years postinjury. Instrumentation: The VAP was used to obtain ratings of fun ctional skills and vocational related behaviors using eight of the nin e profiles that constitute the entire instrument. These profiles inclu ded a structured interview (personal demographics interview), three cl inical profiles (physical, social-emotional, and neuropsychological), and four vocational profiles (lob-search skills, Interviewing skills, critical work behavior, and social adaptive behavior). A one-page, 13- item questionnaire was used to collect employment data in a follow-up conducted 6 months after VAPs were completed. Results: All VAP profile s had high internal consistency reliability, and each profile was comp osed of a small number of factors that accounted for the majority of t he response variability, indicating factors that imply both high relia bility and construct validity. Criterion validity was found to be high for several of the profiles in terms of ability to predict employment status at an acceptable level of significance. A number of the skills and behaviors included on the four vocational profiles (job-search sk ills, interviewing skills, critical work behavior, and social adaptive behavior) and one clinical profile (social-emotional) were significan tly correlated with employment at the 6-month follow-up. Conclusions: The VAP exhibited psychometric properties that suggest it to be both r eliable and valid as a means of examining many of the basic vocational -related skills and functional behaviors related to employment for per sons with a brain injury.