Strong

Generalities

The Strong Interest Inventory was first published in 1927. It underwent various revisions over the years. It is based on the work of Strong, Kuder, Holland by C. Hansen and D. Campbell, and more recently from Mike Morris (The MBTI Company, 2024). It was published and distributed by CPP, Mountain View, CA, USA (2006), and renamed The Myers-Briggs Company, Sunnyvale, CA, USA (2024).

Assessment

The questionnaire consists of 291 forced-choice items for 130 occupations across 6 general occupation fields (2006). Completion time is approximately 30 minutes. The approach is comparable to the Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS) test. The Strong compares individual dispositions with those generally found in 244 occupations, divided into 32 basic interest groups (2020). The following RIASEC dimensions are measured:

Dimension	GRI a priori
Realistic	Low 2
Artistic	Not applicable
Investigative	Not applicable
Social	High 2
Enterprising	High 1, low 4
Conventional	Low 1, high 4

The RIASEC dimensions can further be broken down into six types: the doers, the thinkers, the creators, the helpers, the persuaders, and the organizers. The Strong measures preferences in 32 professional fields. In addition, the Strong describes an individual's personal style preferences in different areas, such as learning environment and risk-taking. The Strong includes six personal style scales:

Dimension	GRI a priori
People-Things	Low 2 / high 2
Ideas-Data	Low 2
Learning environment	Not applicable
Leadership style	Not applicable
Risk Taking	Low 4
Team Orientation	Low 1

The assessment maps occupations to the individual’s interests and suggests those that are most likely to lead to satisfaction. The MBTI Company combines the 1994 version of the Strong with the MBTI, producing graphical results and reports. The interpretations of the measurements are made using manuals. Individual reports are printed.

Statistics

Statistical studies on the Strong, as well as updates, are available.

Usage

The Strong is designed to identify an individual’s interests and work preferences. It is proposed for career counselling and as a planning tool.

Comments

Career counselors get those questions about “what should I do” and the assessment is supposed to help provide answers. But after half a century, it is still doubtful that such an instrument, even with recent updates (2024) can provide appropriate suggestions for jobs, not to mention it could serve as an accurate predictor of job success.

As we evidence with GRI, different jobs require expressing different behaviors more or less frequently. Behavior profiles help understand how interests develop and what will assist the person to grow in the job. Interest and success in jobs depend on environmental factors too, such as social connections, industry demand, managerial, team, and a company’s characteristics, which an assessment cannot determine.

The average price of an assessment was $8 (2006). $12 to $18, depending on the type of report [12-2024].

References

See [| here a presentation and comments by Mike Morris (from the MBTI Company) on Youtube] including about the satisfaction and truth of what is measured by the Strong and how to use the results as an indicator.