376 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT
rather than a set of isolated work functions or skills. To work
as a carpenter means not only to have a certain status, com-
munity role, and a special pattern of living. In this sense, the
choice of an occupational title represents several kinds of
information: the S’s motivation, his knowledge of the occu-
pation in question, his insight and understanding of himself,
and his abilities. In short, item responsesmay be thought of as
limited but useful expressive or projective protocols.[Holland,
1958, p. 336; italics added]A remarkable series of research articles followed while Holland
was at the National Merit Scholarship Corporation document-
ing the characteristics of the types, their preferred activities, self-
descriptions, and competencies. These studies, which were summa-
rized in Holland (1997), reveal that the six types, when calculated
using one of the several inventories available to measure them,
show a reliable pattern of characteristics consistent with theoreti-
cal predictions. For example, Realistic types are hard-headed and
conforming; they prefer industrial arts and agriculture as major fields
and surveyor and mechanic as occupational choices, whereas Artis-
tic types are imaginative, nonconforming, and emotional, prefer art
and music as major fields and artist and writer as occupational
choices (Holland, 1997).
In addition to the studies exploring the nature of the types, Hol-
land collaborated with Alexander Astin (Astin & Holland, 1961)
to study the nature of college environments. The Environmental
Assessment Technique (EAT) involved a census of the type of ma-
jors, courses, and students at a particular university as a means of
characterizing the educational environment that resulted. The ini-
tial work, especially that in college environments, was summarized
in an important American College Testing monograph by W. Bruce
Walsh (1973), a student of Holland’s at the University of Iowa.
The 1970s were characterized by an intense period of measure-
ment research and development. The Self-Directed Search (SDS)
emerged; there were revisions of the VPI; the Holland themes were
added to the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (Campbell &