The vocational interest survey for Australia: Its use with unemployed individuals

Arising from the growing need for a comprehensive career-guidance service f or adults, and in particular for unemployed people in Australia, this study reports results that can be interpreted as generally supporting the use of the VISA with the unemployed. Additionally, the factor analyses, particula rly the higher order factor analysis, raised questions about the utility of the eight VISA subscales and suggested that a two-factor solution of the V ISA data might be more practical for practitioners providing vocational cou nselling to the unemployed. Descriptive statistics for the unemployed Austr alian population suggest that if a two-factor solution is used to interpret the data, then the unemployed are significantly more likely to nominate th eir interests toward the things pole of a people-things dimension than Aust ralian secondary school students. The study begins to address the dearth of research in the area of career guidance for the unemployed.