Children’s vocational interests: The first psychometric validation of the multilingual iconographic professional interests inventory (MIPII) in Iran

Professional interests play an essential role in professional choices, educational and career counseling, and person-environment fit. The Multilingual Iconographic Professional Interests Inventory (MIPII) has been designed to help elementary school students explore their vocational interests, through self-reflection and increase the likelihood of pursuing satisfying future school and career choices. In this study, factor analyses, internal consistency, and convergent validity of the MIPII were examined on a sample of 756 Iranian elementary school students of the 4th to 6th grades. Exploratory Factor Analysis rendered Things, Leisure, and Culture for both versions of females and males. The 30 most items congruent with the six types of Holland were selected to test the Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (RIASEC) model, confirmed in the personality types but not on its circumplexity. Concurrent validity of the MIPII items with the subscales of the Inventory of Children’s Activities (ICA-3) was confirmed. The consistency between the most significant correlation coefficients of MIPII occupations and the primary Holland code of Occupational Information Network (O*NET) classifications was investigated. This inventory proved to possess good psychometrics in assessing Iranian children’s professional interests.