Ipsative evaluative attitudes versus vocational interests and cognitive abilities of bright male and female seventh-graders

This empirical study involves three types of "tests:" values, interests, and cognitive abilities useful for learning science. It also involves three methods of test-battery construction or use: ipsative (forced-choice), non-ipsative ("normative"), and ipsatived (i.e., normative scores changed to ipsative ones). Scores from ipsatively constructed or ipsatively scored test batteries have no overall level; every examinee earns the same total score. Thus, ipsativity creates strange statistics, but sometimes (as in this study) yields interesting results. For the bright seventh-grade students studied, some of the main findings are as follows: The boys' Theoretical evaluative attitude relates best to the eight cognitive tests, whereas the girls' aesthetic evaluative attitude does; the boys are much more Theoretical, Economic, and Political than the girls, and the girls are much more aesthetic, Social, and Religious than the boys (the same findings as for college students); the cognitive test score's intercorrelate surprisingly highly, considering the great selectivity of the samples studied; and there is considerable agreement of scores on the intrinsically ipsative Allport-Vemon-Lindzey Study of Values with those on the normative Holland Occupations Checklist (HOC), and even more so when the HOC scores are forced to become ipsative.