Donald Super’s Work Values Inventory (WVI)

Abstract

The Donald Super’s Work Values Inventory (WVI) is a seminal psychometric tool developed by influential career theorist Donald Super to assess the relative importance an individual places on various factors of job satisfaction and career fulfillment. The original WVI, consisting of 45 items, measures 15 distinct work values, such as Achievement, Economic Return, and Altruism. It is a cornerstone instrument in vocational guidance and career counseling, designed to help individuals align their personal values with occupational choices, thereby promoting career longevity and satisfaction. Subsequent revisions, including the Work Values Inventory-Revised (WVI-R) and WVI-3, have aimed to modernize the constructs and improve the psychometric properties of the scale for contemporary use.

Keywords

Work Values Inventory, Donald Super, Career Development, Vocational Psychology, Work Preferences, Psychological Assessment, Achievement, Security, Altruism.

Authors

Donald E. Super.

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the WVI is to provide a structured, quantifiable assessment of an individual’s work priorities. By measuring the relative importance of 15 key values, the inventory enables counselors and clients to identify the underlying motivational drivers that influence career satisfaction and job stability. The results are utilized in vocational guidance settings to facilitate informed decision-making regarding career entry, transition, or change.

Beyond individual counseling, the instrument has been widely used in research to test hypotheses derived from Super’s Career Development Theory, particularly concerning how work values emerge, change, and influence life roles across the lifespan. It serves as a diagnostic tool to predict potential conflicts between individual needs and environmental demands within a workplace.

Construct

The WVI measures the psychological construct of work values—the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that individuals seek to obtain through their occupational activities. The original WVI operationalized this construct across 15 dimensions, each measured by three items. These dimensions encompass a broad spectrum of work needs, reflecting both internal satisfaction and external conditions.

The 15 primary dimensions of the WVI are:

• Intrinsic Values: Intellectual Stimulation, Creativity, Achievement, Independence, Variety.
• Extrinsic/Environmental Values: Economic Return, Security, Prestige, Aesthetic, Supervisory Relationships, Associates, Surroundings.
• Other Values: Management, Altruism, Way of Life.

Validity

The validity of the WVI has been examined through various methods over several decades. Early research focused on factor structure and inter-item relationships (Gable & Pruzek, 1971) to ensure the scales were measuring distinct dimensions. More recent studies, such as the psychometric evaluation of the WVI-Revised (Robinson & Betz, 2008), have confirmed acceptable construct validity, demonstrating that the scales align theoretically with established models of vocational interests and personality.

Further validation efforts have focused on convergent validity, correlating WVI scores with other measures of vocational preferences, and on criterion validity, assessing the instrument’s ability to predict job satisfaction and tenure. Studies have also addressed the cross-cultural relevance and specific validity for diverse populations (e.g., African Americans, Hammond et al., 2010), ensuring the instrument maintains its utility in diverse career counseling environments.

Reliability

Reliability analyses for the WVI typically focus on internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach’s alpha) and temporal stability (test-retest reliability). While some older studies and examinations of non-Western samples (Wong & Yuen, 2015) have highlighted issues with the internal consistency of specific subtests, most psychometric reviews of the standardized versions report acceptable reliability coefficients for the majority of the 15 scales.

The stability of work values over time is a key theoretical assumption of Super’s model, and longitudinal studies, such as those conducted by Leuty (2013) on the WVI-Revised, generally support high temporal stability. This stability confirms that the WVI measures enduring personal characteristics relevant for long-term career planning.

Factor Analysis

Factor analysis played a critical role in the initial development of the WVI, confirming the theoretical delineation of the 15 underlying work values. Researchers have repeatedly applied exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA/CFA) to investigate the dimensionality of the scale. While the 15-factor structure is the theoretical standard, some analyses have suggested that the items cluster into a smaller number of higher-order factors, often aligning with intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.

Studies examining the factor structure of the WVI-Revised have aimed to produce a cleaner, more robust model, sometimes leading to the consolidation or revision of certain scales. These analyses are crucial for maintaining the empirical integrity of the instrument and ensuring that the scores accurately reflect the intended psychological constructs.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-Report Inventory / Norm-Referenced Work Values Assessment

Format: 45 items (Original WVI) using a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (“Unimportant”) to 5 (“Very Important”).

Language Available: Primarily English; translated and adapted versions exist globally, particularly through the international collaborations of the Work Importance Study (WIS).

Population Group: General population involved in or preparing for occupational roles.

Age Group: Adolescents and adults (typically high school age through retirement).

Population Details: Used broadly in educational settings, career centers, and organizational development programs. Validation across diverse ethnic and cultural groups has been an ongoing research focus.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate each of the 45 statements based on how important the characteristic is to them in a job. Raw scores are summed for each of the 15 scales, providing a profile of prioritized work values which can then be interpreted against occupational requirements.

Keywords

Psychological testing, Vocational assessment, Work satisfaction, Career maturity, Psychometrics, Values assessment, Job fit, Donald Super.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Not applicable for Donald E. Super)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A

Correspondence Address: N/A

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The original manual for the Work Values Inventory was published in 1970 by Houghton-Mifflin. The instrument has undergone several revisions and is typically managed by educational publishers or assessment organizations. Information regarding current licensing, permissions, and associated fees for professional use must be obtained from the current copyright holder or authorized distributor of the specific version (WVI, WVI-R, or WVI-3).

The original PDF versions of the instrument and the WVI-3 can be found here:

• The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://sites.psu.edu/stephaniehainescareerportfolio/wp-content/uploads/sites/37738/2016/01/Work-Values-Inventory.pdf
• The WVI-3 PDF can be downloaded here: http://humwork.uchri.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Workvaluesinventory-3.pdf
• A mirrored WVI-3 PDF can be downloaded here: https://humwork.uchri.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Workvaluesinventory-3.pdf

Reference’s

• Super, D. E. (1970). Manual, Work Values Inventory. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.
• Gable, R. K., & Pruzek, R. M. (1971). Super’s Work Values Inventory: Two multivariate studies of inter-item relationships. The Journal of Experimental Education, 40, 41-50.
• Zytowski, D.G. (1994). A super contribution to vocational theory: Work values. Special Issue: From vocational guidance to career counseling: Essays to honor Donald E. Super. Career Development Quarterly 43, 25–31.
• Super, D. E. (1995). Values: Their nature, assessment, and practical use. In D. E. Super & B. Sverko (Eds.), Life roles, values and careers: International findings of the Work Importance Study (p. 54-61). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Robinson, C. H., & Betz, N. E. (2008). A psychometric evaluation of Super’s Work Values Inventory-Revised. Journal of Career Assessment, 16, 456-473.
• Hammond, M. S., Betz, N. E., Multon, K. D., & Irvin, T. (2010). Super’s Work Values Inventory-Revised Scale validation for African Americans. Journal of Career Assessment, 18, 266-275.
• Leuty, M. E. (2013). Stability of scores on Super’s Work Values Inventory-Revised. Measurement and Evaluation in Counselling and Development, 46, 3: 202-217.
• Wong, SW., Yuen, MT. (2015). Super’s Work Values Inventory: Issues of Subtest Internal Consistency Using a Sample of Chinese University Students in Hong Kong. Journal of Employment Counseling, 52(1), 29-35.

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Items of the Donald Super’s Work Values Inventory (WVI)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

WORK IN WHICH YOU:

1. have to keep solving problems
2. help others
3. can get a raise
4. look forward to changes in your job
5. have freedom in your area
6. gain prestige in your field
7. need to have artistic ability
8. are one of the gang
9. know your job will last
10. can be the kind of person you would like to be
11. have a boss who gives you a fair deal
12. like the setting in which your work is done
13. get the feeling of having done a good day’s work
14. have the authority over others
15. try out new ideas and suggestions
16. create something new
17. know by the results when you’ve done a good job
18. have a boss who is reasonable
19. are sure of always having a job
20. add beauty to the world
21. make your own decisions
22. have pay increases that keep up with the cost of living
23. are mentally challenged
24. use leadership abilities
25. have adequate lounge, toilet and other facilities
26. have a way of life, while not on the job, that you like
27. form friendships with your fellow employees
28. know that others consider your work important
29. do not do the same thing all the time
30. feel you have helped another person
31. add to the well-being of other people
32. do many different things
33. are looked up to by others
34. have good connections with fellow workers
35. lead the kind of life you most enjoy
36. have a good place in which to work (quiet, calm, etc.)
37. plan and organize the work of others
38. need to be mentally alert
39. are paid enough to live very well
40. are your own boss
41. make attractive products
42. are sure of another job in the company if your present job ends
43. have a supervisor who is considerate
44. see the result of your efforts
45. contribute new ideas

The original rating scale for the WVI is:

5= means “Very Important”, 4= means “Important”, 3= means “Moderately Important”, 2= means “Of Little Importance”, 1= means “Unimportant”

The 15 scales and their corresponding item numbers (WVI):

• CREATIVITY: (15, 16, 45)
• MANAGEMENT: (14, 24, 37)
• ACHIEVEMENT: (13, 17, 44)
• SURROUNDINGS: (12, 25, 36)
• SUPERVISORY RELATIONSHIPS: (11, 18, 43)
• WAY OF LIFE: (10, 26, 35)
• SECURITY: (9, 19, 42)
• ASSOCIATES: (8, 27, 34)
• AESTHETIC: (7, 20, 41)
• PRESTIGE: (6, 28, 33)
• INDEPENDENCE: (5, 21, 40)
• VARIETY: (4, 29, 32)
• ECONOMIC RETURN: (3, 22, 39)
• ALTRUISM: (2, 30, 31)
• INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION: (1, 23, 38)