ABSTRACT
The Strong Interest Inventory is the oldest, continuously used interest inventory available today. As was the case with most interest inventories developed in the 1920s and 1930s, the Strong Interest Inventory had its beginnings in an item pool created just after World War I. The work was done as part of a seminar, conducted by Clarence S.Yoakum at Carnegie Institute of Technology, which explored the problem of using a paper-and-pencil questionnaire to differentiate people in various occupations. The result of the seminar's effort was a pool of 1,000 items that eventually found their way into several instruments (e.g., Occupational Interest Inventory, Freyd, 1923; General Interest Survey, Kornhauser, 1927; and Purdue Interest Report, Remmers, 1929), only one of which, the Strong Interest Inventory, survived the changes of time and society to continue in use today. The longevity of the Strong is due primarily to the revisions that have been done periodically throughout its history.
