Multidimensional Scaling Research in Vocational Psychology

This review summarizes and evaluates the use of multidimensional scaling in vocational psychology. Multidimensional scaling applications are found in two primary areas: vocational interests and occupational perceptions. These areas correspond to the two major uses of multidimensional scaling: configural verification and dimensional identification. Two issues—the relationship between multidimensional scaling and alternative data analytic methods, and the selection of occupational stimuli—are discussed. A number of developing areas for the application of multidimensional scaling are identified. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) refers to a class of techniques that are used to investigate the structure underlying data. More specifically, the technique organizes proximity data by portraying the similarities among a set of objects as spatial relationships. Although MDS techniques have a wide range of potential applications, the purpose of the present discussion is to summarize and to evaluate the use of these techniques in vocational research. It is not unusual for a considerable period of time to elapse between the introduction of a new statistical method and its application to substantive issues in a scientific discipline. Although the algorithms for metric (Torgerson, 1952, 1958) and nonmetric (~r~slc~l9 1964) MDS have been available for approximately three decades, the extensive