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APPENDIX B
Site Visits to Selected Federal Users of the
Dictionary of Occupational Titles
PATRICIA A.ROOS
The staff conducted site visits to three federal users of the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles. The agencies chosen for detailed analysis were selected
because they “rode the requisition” for the DOT, that is, they purchased the DOT
in large quantities supplementary to the Employment Service's purchase order.
These agencies are the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training of the
Department of Labor, the Bureau of Disability Insurance of the Social Security
Administration, and the Veterans Administration. The Department of the Navy
purchased multiple copies (1,250) of the DOT; however, since these copies went
directly into storage, the committee staff felt that a visit to the Department of
the Navy would not be a fruitful one.
BUREAU OF APPRENTICESHIP AND TRAINING
In the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training (BAT) the primary user and
the office originating an order for 1,000 copies of the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles is the Division of Review and Registration (DRR). The staff
of the national office of BAT oversees the registration of apprenticeship
programs, a procedure that involves an evaluation of whether the occupation to
be apprenticed meets the criteria of eligibility (apprenticeability) required by
BAT. From the national office, copies of the DOT were distributed to BAT
representatives at the 10 regional offices and all the field offices. A copy of the
DOT was also given to each of the 32 state apprenticeship councils, which
coordinate their work with BAT as well as
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to some of the larger program sponsors of apprenticeship programs. There are
currently 543 apprenticeable occupations recognized by the Bureau of
Apprenticeship and Training. The number of people being trained for these
occupations has risen from 26,137 in 1941 to 262,586 in 1977. The DOT is a
primary source book in the evaluation of a proposed apprenticeship program—
no program can be registered with BAT if the corresponding occupation does not
have a DOT code.
The Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training was established as the primary
agency within the Department of Labor responsible for ensuring compliance
with, and carrying out the objectives of, the National Apprenticeship Law of
1937. Though the bureau is not involved in the training itself, it works closely
with employers, unions, state apprenticeship agencies, and vocational schools to
set up and monitor apprenticeship programs across the country. Responding to
proposals for apprenticeship programs initiated at the local level, the Division
of Review and Registration determines whether the occupation to be
apprenticed meets BAT criteria and the program meets BAT standards; if so, DRR
registers the program with BAT. Although registration of apprenticeship
programs with BAT is not required, there are advantages to both employers and
employees of such registration. For employers, BAT serves a training and
consulting role, at no charge, advising them of the various rules and regulations
(e.g., equal employment opportunity regulations) affecting their apprenticeship
programs. In addition to its advisory role, BAT also benefits employers by
ensuring quality education for apprentices and reducing costly job hopping. For
employees, BAT ensures that upon completion of the program, participants will
receive journeyman status and wages. The BAT also monitors compliance with
the Davis-Bacon Act, which stipulates that in order to pay less than journeyman
wages, employers must register their apprenticeship program with either BAT or
a state apprenticeship agency recognized by BAT; apprentices are thus
guaranteed wage protection. The bureau views its role as one of opening the
door for employers and employees to work together for mutual benefit.
USING THE DOT TO EVALUATE THE APPRENTICEABILITY OF
OCCUPATIONS
In order to be considered “apprenticeable,” occupations must meet certain
criteria developed by BAT, the most important of which is that the occupation be
a skilled trade (no professional occupations are apprenticed). Another criterion,
the one for which the DOT is most frequently used, is that the occupation be one
that involves manual, mechanical, or technical skills and knowledge requiring a
minimum of 2,000 hours (about
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1 year) of on-the-job work experience. Similarly, in order for an apprenticeship
program to be registered with BAT, it must include the provision that apprentices
receive at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job training.
The initial review concerning the apprenticeability of an occupation begins
at the field level, when a potential program sponsor contacts a BAT
representative in order to have an apprenticeship program registered. At this
point a nine-digit DOT code is assigned to the occupation to be apprenticed. If no
such code exists, the national BAT office requests the Division of Occupational
Analysis to undertake a complete job analysis study to create one.
Once a nine-digit DOT code is assigned to an occupation to be apprenticed,
the DOT is used primarily in verifying that the number of hours of on-the-job
training (or term) specified by the program sponsor (in the description of the
work process to be completed by the apprentice) matches the specific
vocational preparation (SVP) estimate associated with the corresponding
journeyman occupation. As mentioned above, an apprenticeship program must
require a minimum of 2,000 hours of on-the-job training in order to be
registered with BAT. The BAT staff with whom I spoke use the following
equivalence between the required term of the apprenticeship program and the
SVP estimates in order to verify the length of training time estimated by program
sponsors:
Term Code (and Definitions)
SVP
1 year 5 (6 months to 1 year)
2 years 6 (1–2 years)
3–4 years 7 (over 2–4 years)
4 years 8 (over 4–10 years)
not applicable 9 (over 10 years)
As an example, let us suppose that a program sponsor submitted a work
process description for an apprentice Wool-and-Pelt Grader and noted that the
apprenticeship tenure should be 2 years. The SVP code associated with the
journeyman occupation corresponding to an apprentice Wool-and-Pelt Grader is
4, which suggests that the vocational training required is less than 6 months.
The BAT staff would thus note that the term specified by the employer did not
correspond to the SVP estimate of training time, and since the latter was lower
than the required 2,000 hours, the program would not be registered. Since the
2,000-hour rule is also one of the criteria used to determine the apprenticeability
of an occupation, a similar matching process takes place in that evaluation.
When the term and SVP estimates do not match, there can be two explanations:
either the employer
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overestimated the amount of training needed, or the SVP estimate was miscoded.
If the latter is believed to be the case, BAT could recommend that the occupation
go back for additional job analysis.
The SVP specification is thus used to make distinctions among occupations
in the amount of training time required to reach journeyman status; those
occupations not requiring at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job training are not
registered by BAT (2,000 hours is equivalent to an SVP level of 5 or above). The
SVP estimates used by the bureau are taken from an interim report prepared in
February 1978 by the Division of Occupational Analysis (U.S. Department of
Labor, 1978b). It will be superseded by the as-yet-unpublished supplement to
the fourth edition DOT, “Selected Characteristics of Occupations,” which is
being financed by the Social Security Administration and includes the entire
range of worker traits.
The worker function codes for DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS are also used by
BAT to provide an indication of the skill level of a job—that is, the higher the
code, the lower the skill level required. The general education development
(GED) scale is also occasionally used to compare the entrance requirements of
occupations with the description of the job as provided in the work process
report. The DOT definitions themselves are occasionally used to evaluate the
adequacy of the work process descriptions provided by the program sponsors.
In addition to these specific uses, the DOT codes are used in the State and
National Apprenticeship Reporting System (SNAPS), a statistical reporting
system that provides a breakdown of the distribution of participants in
apprenticeship programs by race, ethnicity, veteran status, and sex.
Other than the DOT, BAT uses two other specially prepared reports of the
occupational analysis program. One is the interim report mentioned above, and
the other is a frequently used three-volume computer printout that provides a
conversion from third edition to fourth edition DOT codes; the printout also lists
deletions made between the two editions. A third frequently used source book
for occupational information is the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
ADEQUACY OF THE DOT
The staff at BAT view the DOT as being crucial to their work. The DOT code
itself, the job definitions, and especially the SVP codes are used regularly in
evaluating the apprenticeability of occupations and registering apprenticeship
programs. Those with whom we spoke made detailed suggestions for improving
the fourth edition DOT (e.g., the DOT should be hardbound and in a loose-leaf
format).
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On a more substantive level, BAT staff would like to see the apprenticeship
codes in the fourth edition removed. Since they view apprenticeships as only
temporary, BAT staff always use the journeyman code that represents the
occupational objective of the apprentice. To include a DOT code for apprentices
suggests that permanent apprenticeship occupations exist, a practice that goes
against the spirit of apprenticing occupations. It was noted that some of the
apprenticeship codes in the fourth edition DOT do not even have a corresponding
journeyman code (e.g., 863.364–010, Insulation Worker Apprentice
(construction)).
Another problem for BAT with the fourth edition DOT is that some
occupations recognized as apprenticeable by BAT were consolidated and not
given separate entries in the DOT (and thus not recognized as separate
occupations). Further coordination between BAT and the occupational analysis
program was suggested in order to correct this problem. Finally, BAT staff would
like to see apprenticed occupations noted in some way in the next edition of the
DOT; for example, occupations recognized as apprenticeable by BAT could be set
in boldface type for easier accessibility by training representatives.
BUREAU OF DISABILITY INSURANCE
A request for 2,240 copies of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles
originated from the Medical and Vocational Methods Branch of the Bureau of
Disability Insurance (BDI), an agency in the Social Security Administration
(SSA). The Medical and Vocational Methods Branch is concerned with the
formulation and dissemination of policy concerning the medical definition of
disability. From BDI, copies of the DOT were distributed to the Bureau of
Hearings and Appeals (the appellate level) and to the 10 regional offices for
distribution to state disability agencies.
Eligibility for benefits under Title 2 of the social security legislation
depends on establishing that a person's disabilities are debilitating in the sense
that they keep him or her from being employed in the same or “similar” work
that he or she has performed in the past. The legislation's definition of disability
mandates that a person's ability to perform alternative work be evaluated before
disability benefits are awarded. According to BDI personnel the DOT has become
the primary source document used in this evaluation. At the time of the site
visit, SSA personnel were not employing the fourth edition DOT, since the
relevant supplement, Selected Characteristics of Occupations (Physical
Demands, Working Conditions, Training Times), for which the Social Security
Administration contributed $50,000, was not yet published. (A similar
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supplement had been prepared for the third edition (U.S. Department of Labor,
1966).)
The determination of whether disability allowances should be awarded
may be made solely on the basis of a medical assessment of disability.
However, if examiners cannot adjudicate on the basis of medical evidence
alone, they use the DOT to make an assessment of what functions the individual
is able to perform, that is, they make a determination of his or her “residual
functional capacity.” This assessment involves the development of a vocational
profile based on an evaluation of the physical exertion and skill levels of past
employment. This profile can then be matched against recommended alternative
employment to determine whether, with a given disability, an individual is
capable of performing “substantial gainful employment.” If not, disability
benefits are allowed.
USING THE DOT TO DETERMINE DISABILITY AWARDS
The processing of disability claims begins at the local social security office
when an individual comes in to file for disability benefits. A claims
representative interviews the client and writes up a description of the client's
disability and work experience for the past 15 years. The claim is then
transmitted to the Disability Determination Section (DDS) of the state's
vocational rehabilitation agency, where an adjudicator assembles the relevant
medical and vocational evidence. On the basis of this evidence the adjudicator
determines whether the individual should be awarded benefits on the basis of
medical evidence alone or whether alternative employment exists in which the
individual could find work. The primary role of the vocational specialists at the
Medical and Vocational Methods Branch (national office) is in mediating
disability disputes between the local district offices and the state DDS. The role
of mediator usually involves interpreting the Social Security Administration's
rules and regulations as they relate to recommending jobs for the disabled
claimant. Disputes usually involve an evaluation of the transferability of the
claimant's skills to recommended other employment.
The DOT is used primarily for making an assessment of the kind of
employment the claimant can perform, given the disability incurred and his or
her past employment. The underlying principle employed in the evaluation
process is that if the physical, mental, and skill levels of the disabled individual
match the physical, mental, and skill demands of his or her previous
employment, disability benefits are not allowed. If the individual cannot
perform his or her past employment, a determination is then made as to whether
there exist other jobs in the national economy (without regard to whether such
jobs are locally available) that the
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disabled person could perform (e.g., work similar to previous employment but
perhaps requiring less exertion).
Various volumes and supplements of the DOT are used in assessing the
physical, mental, and skill levels of previous work experience and potential
employment. In determining whether skills are transferable between past and
alternative employment (i.e., whether recommended jobs are appropriate),
vocational specialists occasionally use the following questions as general
guidelines:
1. Are jobs at the same or a lower skill level? (Jobs at higher skill levels are
not recommended.)
2. Do new jobs involve the same or similar tools?
3. Do recommended jobs involve similar processing and products?
These guidelines are merely suggestive, since “appropriate” employment
does not necessarily have to be similar to previous employment on all three
factors.
This determination of the transferability of skills between past and
potential employment is made by referring to Supplement One of the third
edition DOT, Selected Characteristics of Occupations, since the relevant fourth
edition supplement has not yet been published. This volume contains
information on worker trait groups, industry, physical demands, working
conditions, and the GED and SVP training time specifications, all of which are
employed to develop a vocational profile of the claimant. In order to ensure that
recommended jobs are not at a higher skill and function level than previous
employment, the analyst uses the worker function specifications of DATA,
PEOPLE, and THINGS. It is assumed that the higher the worker function score, the
lower the skill level of the occupation. For example, if the person's previous
employment had a worker function score of 884, the analyst would seek other
“884” jobs that are similar in other ways (such as being in the same industry)
either by referring to the DOT classification in Supplement One to find other jobs
clustered near the original occupation or by referring to the worker trait groups
(in which jobs with the same worker traits are arranged together), provided in
Volume 2 of the third edition DOT. Jobs that are likely possibilities are then
checked by referring to the job definitions and job characteristics. In order to be
considered appropriate alternative work, recommended jobs must not have
DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS codes lower (skill level higher) than the codes of the
claimant's past work experience.
A similar sort of comparison process is carried out with the GED and SVP
specifications, which are taken to represent another part of the claimant's job
profile. In order to be considered appropriate, recommended
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jobs must be at the same or similar levels of GED and SVP, which are also loosely
taken as measures of the skill level of the job. Although the analysts do not
translate GED codes into years of schooling, a general rule of thumb is to call
jobs in levels 1 and 2 “unskilled” and to call jobs in levels 3 and above “skilled.”
The third component of the composite job profile takes into consideration
the physical demands and the working conditions of the job. The physical
demands assessed are the amount of strength (whether the job is sedentary or
whether it requires light, medium, heavy, or very heavy lifting), the need to
climb, balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, crawl, reach, handle, finger, feel, talk,
hear, and see. The working conditions defined by the DOT include whether the
job is typically performed indoors, outdoors, or both and whether it involves
extremes of heat or cold, wetness, humidity, noise, vibration, hazards, fumes,
odors, toxic conditions, dust, or poor ventilation. These characteristics of
recommended jobs can be compared with the job profiles developed for the
claimant's previous employment in order to find matches at lower levels of
exertion that the individual can potentially perform, given his or her disabilities.
The principle involved in the comparison includes determining whether, given
the particular physical and/or mental impairment, the individual can do the job.
ADEQUACY OF THE DOT
The BDI personnel interviewed felt that there were no other occupational
source books that came close to providing the information currently existing in
the DOT. They felt that if the DOT were to be discontinued, their judgments
regarding the determination of disability would be more speculative and
unrealistic: adjudicators would have to make decisions solely on the basis of
medical evidence without giving appropriate weight to the vocational
background of the claimant. Only one minor complaint was offered about the
DOT product itself: analysts occasionally question the function or skill level
assigned to a particular occupation. Because problems come up so rarely, there
is no formal mechanism set up to apprise the Division of Occupational Analysis
so that revisions can be incorporated into future editions of the DOT. The
analysts provided two examples of what they consider to be underestimates of
the physical exertion required on the job: the job of Nurse's Aide was rated as
requiring only light lifting, while BDI staff believe that it should have a rating of
“medium”; the job of Motorman in a mine was also rated as requiring only light
lifting, while BDI staff felt it should have a rating of “medium.”
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VETERANS ADMINISTRATION
The Veterans Administration (VA) ordered 520 copies of the fourth edition
Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The office initiating this request was the
Counseling and Rehabilitation Section of the Division of Education and
Rehabilitation Service. From this office the dictionaries were distributed to 58
regional offices. The VA site visit was conducted at the Washington, D.C.,
regional office of the Counseling and Rehabilitation Section (C&R) so as to gain
awareness of how the DOT is used in the field offices. During fiscal 1977 the
D.C. regional office provided readjustment benefits to 20,439 people and
awarded $11,542,358 in monetary benefits. During fiscal 1978, approximately
2,400 veterans received counseling through this office; the majority of these
people are disabled veterans who are required to undergo rehabilitation
counseling in order to file for benefits.
The Veterans Administration is responsible for carrying out the provisions
of Title 38 of the U.S. Code—Veterans Benefits. The C&R oversees the
implementation of four chapters of Title 38:
1. Chapter 34, the GI Bill, offers educational assistance to veterans who
entered the military prior to January 1, 1977.
2. Chapter 32 provides similar assistance for those veterans who entered the
military on or following January 1, 1977.
3. Chapter 35, the Dependents Program, offers educational assistance to war
orphans or dependents of permanently disabled veterans.
4. Chapter 31, the Disabled or Vocational Rehabilitation Program, provides
rehabilitative counseling and vocational training and makes
recommendations for the payment of benefits to service-disabled veterans.
The D.C. regional office serves an idiosyncratic clientele because of its
location. Many of the clients receiving counseling or benefits through this office
are eventually employed in government jobs. Another feature of the D.C.
clientele is that it is highly educated or, more specifically, in the process of
becoming highly educated. Of the 635 veterans currently receiving educational
assistance through the D.C. office, approximately 500 are in college programs,
most of which are 4-year programs.
USING THE DOT IN COUNSELING AND REHABILITATION
Veterans who use the services of the Counseling and Rehabilitation
Section may do so by choice or because their attendance is mandatory. Disabled
veterans must undergo counseling if they wish to take advantage of the veterans'
assistance benefits under Title 38; other veterans are not
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required to undergo counseling but may choose to do so. Once a veteran is
adjudged eligible for counseling and/or rehabilitation services, he or she is
given an appointment with a counseling psychologist (CP). Although one of the
services of the CP's is personal psychological counseling, they use the DOT
primarily in their role as occupational or vocational counselors in exploring the
client's vocational plans and developing occupational objectives. Once the client
and the counselor agree on an occupational objective, the six-digit third edition
DOT code (the VA plans to switch to the nine-digit fourth edition code shortly) is
assigned to identify that objective. In addition to using the DOT code to identify
the occupational objective, the counselors use the DOT for occupational
exploration. They use the DOT in this context to define tasks within each
occupation or job so that the client can determine which jobs are well suited to
his or her constellation of skills and/or interests.
Following the interview with the counseling psychologist, disabled
veterans (or dependents who are themselves disabled) meet with vocational
rehabilitation specialists (VRS) who supervise their retraining. The VRS's, in
consultation with the client, make recommendations regarding the particular
rehabilitative training that the client should undergo and the benefits that should
be paid. In this context the VRS also uses the six-digit DOT code identified
previously to define the agreed-on occupational objective. In the role of
rehabilitative specialist the VRS uses the DOT job definitions to determine
whether the client can perform the various tasks involved in such employment.
In this context the VRS often checks on the physical and environmental attributes
of the occupation, as provided in the third edition DOT, to verify the suitability of
the employment for the particular client.
The fourth edition DOT job definitions are used in a variety of ways by the
counselors. Counselors remarked that they often encourage their clients to read
through various job definitions to get an idea of the tasks involved in particular
occupations in order to determine which are most suitable for them, given their
interests and skills. One counselor remarked that she had clients read through
the task descriptions in order to help them prepare résumés for job interviews
by reminding them what tasks were involved in their previous occupations. The
job definitions are also used when disagreements arise between the veteran and
the professional staff regarding “suitable employment.” If a veteran disagrees
with the assessment of the counselor, the case can go before the Board of
Veterans Appeals. In such a situation the counselor prepares a statement of the
case, citing relevant laws and regulations. In this context he or she often
references the DOT to document the case by describing the tasks inherent in a
particular occupational category.
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None of the staff with whom we spoke used the military occupation codes
or definitions, which were added to the fourth edition DOT. Since they are
interested only in the transferability of military skills to civilian occupations,
they found no use for codes that refer to military-specific occupations. In fact,
they used the military occupational specialty (MOS) itself only when it involved
skills that were directly transferable to desired civilian occupations.
The counselors do not make use of either the GED and SVP estimates or the
supplement to the third edition DOT funded by the Social Security
Administration, Selected Characteristics of Occupations (Physical Demands,
Working Conditions, Training Times). They did, however, mention that they
used the physical and environmental attributes of occupations, provided in the
worker trait section of the third edition DOT. Their use of these attributes is not
exploratory, in the sense of searching out occupations particularly suited to
people with specific handicaps. Counselors use them instead as a validation
mechanism to ascertain whether a client will be able to perform a particular
occupation, given his or her service-related disabilities.
Counselors also use the worker function data from the DOT in conjunction
with other occupational exploration material such as the Strong-Campbell
Interest Inventory and Holland's Self-Directed Search. Once an occupation or
set of occupations has been targeted via the self-directed search method, the
client has specific DOT titles and codes with which to work. From this point the
counselor can work backward, using the relationship to data, people, and things
codes to verify that the occupations are appropriate given the client's interests,
skills, and self-descriptions. For example, if a person is interested in working
with people and the results from the psychological testing confirm this, the
counselor uses the PEOPLE code (the fifth digit of the DOT code) to verify that the
occupational objectives they are discussing indeed involve significant
interaction with people.
ADEQUACY OF THE DOT
On the whole the counselors view the existence of the DOT as crucial to
their work. The DOT code itself is basic to maintaining statistical records on
occupational objectives of veterans. The job definitions, with their detailed
description of the constituent tasks involved in particular occupations, assist the
counselors in developing educational and occupational objectives with their
clients. However, the C&R staff did have some detailed suggestions for
improving the fourth edition DOT.
The first suggestion has to do with the physical packaging of the
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product. The fourth edition, they believe, is too unwieldy to use efficiently,
owing to its bulk and its soft cover. Their recommendation is that it be produced
as two hard-covered volumes. In addition, one counselor mentioned that the
alphabetical listing is too difficult to use, since it is buried in the middle of the
book.
Another common criticism is that important titles are still missing,
especially titles specific to the government sector. The particular titles
mentioned were intake worker, accounting technician, accounting clerk, and
various paraprofessional occupations. The counselors recommended that all
civil service occupations be incorporated directly into the DOT.
It was also noted that many occupations are not easy to find in the DOT
because of the high degree of cross-referencing. Finally, the staff expressed a
desire for more training on the use of the worker function data of the DOT, since
many of them were uncomfortable with the actual use of the DATA, PEOPLE, and
THINGS codes. They felt that they understood the concept but lacked any real
ability to apply that knowledge to vocational planning in other than a very
primitive way.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
fourth edition
