ABSTRACT
The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT; U.S. Department of Labor [DoL], 1991a, 1991b) and its successor, the Occupational Information Network (O*NETTM; Peterson, Borman, Mumford, Jeanneret, & Fleishman, 1999), have played a unique role for the United States, providing a single, standard system for analyzing and presenting information about occupations for a wide variety of applied uses. Although not perfect (Miller, Treiman, Cain, & Roos, 1980, Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance: Occupational Analysis, 1999), these systems are both milestones of behavioral science achievement. Designed at signifi cantly different periods of time with different technologies and in response to different workplace dynamics, the DOT and the O*NET have been simultaneously shaped by the nations’ societal needs and the state of the art occupational analysis in response to those needs. Industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology has played a major, but not the only, role in the development of these systems. In this chapter we discuss the development and implementation of these systems.
