alt=|frame|[[John L. Holland's RIASEC hexagon of The Holland Codes.]]

The Holland Codes or the Holland Occupational Themes (RIASEC) are a taxonomy of interests based on a theory of careers and vocational choice that was initially developed by American psychologist John L. Holland.

The Holland Codes serve as a component of the interests assessment, the Strong Interest Inventory. In addition, the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has been using an updated and expanded version of the RIASEC model in the "Interests" section of its free online database O*NET (Occupational Information Network) since its inception during the late 1990s.

Overview

Holland's theories of vocational choice, The Holland Occupational Themes, "now pervades career counseling research and practice". The 1959 article in particular ("A Theory of Vocational Choice", published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology) is considered the first major introduction of Holland's "theory of vocational personalities and work environments". Holland's six categories show some correlation with each other. It is called the RIASEC model or the hexagonal model because the initial letter of the region is equal to R-I-A-S-E-C when it is expressed as a circle connecting the regions of high correlation. Professor John Johnson of Penn State suggested that an alternative way of categorizing the six types would be through ancient social roles: "hunters (Realistic), shamans (Investigative), artisans (Artistic), healers (Social), leaders (Enterprising), and lorekeepers (Conventional)". Holland offers full definitions of each type in his book, Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments (Third Edition) (1997).

According to the Committee on Scientific Awards, Holland's "research shows that personalities seek out and flourish in career environments they fit and that jobs and career environments are classifiable by the personalities that flourish in them". Holland also wrote of his theory that "the choice of a vocation is an expression of personality". Furthermore, while Holland suggested that people can be "categorized as one of six types", As a result, two axes of Data/Ideas and Things/People were extracted. Although Prediger's inquiry did not start from interest per se, it eventually led to the birth of models other than RIASEC, suggesting that the structure of occupational interest may provide a basic dimension.

Tracey and Rounds's octagonal model

In the United States, the energetic trial is being made with the aim of the new model which surpasses Holland hexagon model in 1990's. Tracey & Rounds's octagonal model is one such example. Based on the empirical data, they argue that occupational interests can be placed circularly in a two-dimensional plane consisting of People/Things and Data/ldeas axes, and the number of regions can be arbitrarily determined. According to their model, only Holland's hexagonal model does not adequately represent the structure of occupational interest, and it is possible to retain validity as an octagonal or 16 square model if necessary.

Tracey, Watanabe, & Schneider conducted an international comparative study of job interests among Japanese and U.S. university students, and the results suggest that the Tracey & Rounds's octagonal model is more fitted to Japanese students than Holland's hexagonal model.

Tracey and Rounds's spherical model

Tracey & Rounds criticizes that the conventional models of occupational interest structure do not correctly depict the positional relationship of occupations because they neglect occupational prestige, i.e., "social prestige" or "high socioeconomic status" and proposes a spherical model that assigns occupations to a 3-dimensional space incorporating occupational prestige. In this model, 18 regions of interest are displayed on a spherical space. The left hemisphere has a high status area, with Health Sciences at the top. The right hemisphere has a low status area, with Service Provision as the lowest ground.

Though this model is excellent in the point of more accurately describing the relation between various occupations, it makes the occupation interest structure more complicated, and there is a weak point that it is difficult to be adapted to the data except for the U.S. Sample majors and careers include:

  • Agriculture
  • Architect (with Artistic and Enterprising)
  • Dentist (with Investigative and Social)
  • Surgeon (with Investigative and Social) Sample majors and careers include:
  • Actuary (with Conventional and Enterprising)
  • Carpenter (with Conventional and Realistic)
  • Computer engineering/Computer science/Information technology/Computer programmer (with Realistic and Conventional)
  • Financial analyst (with Conventional and Enterprising)
  • Lawyer (with Enterprising and Social)
  • Nurse (with Realistic, Conventional, and Social)
  • Tutor (with Social)
  • Veterinarian (with Realistic and Social) Sample majors and careers include:
  • Architect (with Realistic and Enterprising)
  • Entrepreneur (with Social and Enterprising)
  • Psychology/Psychologist (with Social and Investigative); Art therapist/Dance therapy/Drama therapy/Music therapy/Narrative therapy/Culinary therapy Sample majors and careers include:
  • Archivist/Librarian (with Conventional and Investigative)
  • Customer service (with Conventional and Enterprising)
  • Entrepreneur (with Enterprising and Artistic)
  • Surgeon (with Realistic and Investigative)
  • Sports medicine/Wilderness medicine (with Investigative and Realistic) Sample majors and careers include:
  • Actuary (with Investigative and Conventional)
  • Firefighter (with Social and Realistic)
  • Property manager/Community association manager (with Conventional)
  • Public relations/Publicity/Advertising/Marketing (with Artistic) Sample majors and careers include:
  • Actuary (with Investigative and Enterprising)
  • Human Resources (HR) (with Enterprising and Social)