The assessment of interests has served as the cornerstone for the field of vocational psychology, especially in the United States, for the better part of a century. Interests have served as crucial information in helping individuals learn about themselves, the world of work, and making occupational and educational decisions. At least with respect to the United States, the assessment of interests has been very well done and rivals assessment in most any area of psychology (Fouad, 1999). Given this, it is not uncommon for these interest instruments to be used in other cultures. While such applications can be cost effective, such applications can also be invalid (e.g., see chapter 26). Care must be taken to thoroughly evaluate any application. In this chapter the focus will be on interest assessment in cross cultural contexts by reviewing the issues involved in cross cultural assessment generally and then apply this to interest assessment specifically. In the framework of this contribution the terms cross-cultural and international are used interchangeably but it is recognised that cultures can often be more specific than nationalities. Examples are the separate ethnic cultures found within the United States. So the discussion is not limited, nor should it be, by examining only national differences and similarities.
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Tracey, T.J.G., Gupta, S. (2008). Interest Assessment in an International Context. In: Athanasou, J.A., Van Esbroeck, R. (eds) International Handbook of Career Guidance. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6230-8_26
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