The Career Attitudes and Strategies Inventory (CASI) is a 130-item, paper and pencil, self-report assessment by John L. Holland and Gary D. Gottfredson. The CASI is intended to give the employed or unemployed adult client and career counselor information regarding the client’s likelihood of job stability or change, potential career obstacles, or areas for further development. The CASI was developed by two highly respected vocational psychology and career counseling researchers, whose works typically address Holland’s RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) theory. The authors of the test note that the CASI should be a supplement to rather than a substitution of interest and ability measures. For example, the manual makes frequent mention of the use of the CASI with some of the other instruments developed to operationalize Holland’s theory.
Reviewers have warned that the CASI should be used as a screener or to facilitate discussion between a counselor and a client due to some questionable psychometric data. Yet other reviews do not seem to find a problem with the current psychometric properties of the instrument given its intended use. It seems that most agree that the CASI could use more refinement to address some issues such as norms for special groups and better definition of broad subscales. Overall, the CASI is an interesting, attractive, and easy to use instrument that is useful enough for career counselors to justify continued research and refinement.
CASI items are answered on a 4-point Likert-type scale (false, mostly false, mostly true, and true) as they relate to the test taker. Nine aspects of career or work adaptation are assessed by the CASI: (a) job satisfaction, (b) work involvement, (c) skill development, (d) dominant style, (e) career worries, (f) interpersonal abuse, (g) family commitment, (h) risk-taking style, and (i) geographical barriers.
The manual states that a client can self-score, self-profile, and self-interpret the CASI in about 35 minutes. However, past reviewers of this test supported the use of counselor intervention in the interpretation and discussion of life and career implications relevant to the inventory results. The CASI is published and available for purchase through Psychological Assessment Resources.
The CASI was developed through a commonly utilized three-stage process, which ultimately led to the current version of the measure. The normative group comprises 774 men and women ages 17 to 77 years with education from some high school to postgraduate degrees. The majority of the norm group is European American (79%) with the remaining 21% from other self-identified ethnic groups. Reliability of the test is adequate. The manual reports some validity evidence for the instrument, although this evidence is not well reviewed.
Reference:
- Holland, J. L., & Gottfredson, G. D. (1994). Career Attitudes and Strategies Inventory: An inventory for understanding adult careers. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.