CAREER CHOICE READINESS MODERATES THE EFFECTS OF INTEREST INVENTORY INTERPRETATION

Career development theory postulates that a client's career choice rea diness influences the experience of an interest inventory. This study examined career choice readiness as it related to satisfaction with, r etention of, and use of a videotaped interpretation of the Strong Inte rest Inventory (SII; Hansen & Campbell, 1985). Students (N = 186) from two urban midwestern universities participated in this study. Results indicated that two attitudinal factors of career choice readiness, na mely attitudes toward career planning and attitudes toward career expl oration, predicted how much and how well clients used their interest i nventories. Career choice readiness did not predict immediate satisfac tion with the inventory interpretation nor cognitive retention of the inventory results. The discussion of these findings emphasizes differe ntial use of interest inventory results based on the client's degree o f career choice readiness.