Methods of Testing a Large Number of Motives for Vocational Guidance

There are a huge number of motives and 60 theories explaining them. However, it is not possible to compare the significance of various motives for an individual — there may be too many motives. And accordingly, the issues related to their testing becomes a very large number. Therefore, conclusions have to be made on the example of a very small sample of the most sought-after motifs. A technique is proposed that allows one to obtain the results of comparing a large number of motives with a relatively small number of questions asked. The test consists of 47 questions with pairwise opposition of 11 different motives. The result is obtained by solving a system of linear equations. As a result of the work done, we can predict the behavior of anyone tested, say what he chooses in a given life situation, if it can be interpreted as a confrontation between two motives. To assess the significance of the motive, a rating system was used, in which the motive rating was the higher, the more there was a choice in its favor in pairwise comparison with all other motives. The difference in the ratings of the two motives is linearly related to the probability of choosing both motives. This allows you to create a rating hierarchy of the motives of the subject without direct testing based on his decisions in everyday situations. The indicated method overcomes the well-known problem of the avalanche-like growth of the number of test questions with a large number of motives and forms the probabilistic value of the evaluation of the choice of one of the alternatives. A small number of questions allows you to significantly increase the value of the retest reliability of the answers of the subjects.