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OCR for page 45
4
Use of the
Dictionary of
Occupational Titles
Outside the
U.S. Employment Service
In accordance with its charge, the committee undertook an assessment of
the current and projected need for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles
(and other program products) outside the U.S. Employment Service. As
described in chapter 3, the DOT was originally designed for use as a job-
matching tool for the U.S. Employment Service. Since 1939, when the first
edition was published, the DOT has gained widespread acceptance and has
been widely used by agencies and organizations outside the Employment
Service. Since there has been no previous description of these users, one of
the charges to the committee was to document the uses made of the DOT
and assess the prevalence of these uses. We have approached this objective
in several ways: (1) through a probability survey of persons who had
recently purchased the DOT, (2) by interviews and site visits at organiza-
tions and agencies identified as institutional users of products of the
Division of Occupational Analysis (OA), these interviews being supple-
mented by a survey of persons identified as users of the DOT at the state
level, and (3) through inquiries of researchers who had used the DOT in
their work or had evaluated the DOT itself, to develop an annotated
bibliography of research uses of the DOT.
Patricia A. Roos had primary responsibility for the preparation of this chapter.
45
OCR for page 46
46
COLLECTING DATA ON DOT USES
DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSE
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
Because the Dictionary of Occupational Titles is the most heavily used
publication of the Division of Occupational Analysis, we concentrated our
attention on the kinds and extent of use made of the DOT. The distribution
and use of the career publications and other OA products are discussed at
the end of the chapter.
Figure 4-1 depicts the distribution of the fourth edition Dictionary of
Occupational Titles since its publication in December 1977. These numbers
were derived from consultation with the stab of the Government Printing
Office, the Department of Labor, and the individual agencies to which the
DOT was distributed. The federal agencies in the top half of Figure 4-1 are
those that '`rode the requisition" for the DOT, that is, placed bulk orders
supplementary to the basic requisition by the Department of Labor. In
addition to these agencies other individuals, groups, and organizations
ordered their copies directly from the Government Printing Office (GPO).
Approximately 201,000 copies of the DOT have been printed for sale, and
by September 30, 1979, 115,115 had been sold. A large portion of these
were sold through bulk orders, either to GPO distribution centers or to
college textbook centers.
It is instructive to note that in the first 14-month period following the
publication of the third edition DOT, 40,654 copies were sold; the
comparable figure for the fourth edition was 100,198 copies. The total
number of third edition copies sold from its 1965 publication date through
the end of 1977 (when it went out of print) was 148,145. Clearly, interest
in the information provided by the DOT has increased dramatically since
publication of the third edition.
SAMPLING DESIGN
Given the complex distribution of the DOT, the development of an
adequate sample of DOT users outside the Employment Service represented
something of a challenge. Consideration of Figure 4-1 conveys the nature
of the difficulty. First, many copies were purchased in bulk by federal
agencies and distributed to relevant staff, and no record was kept as to who
received copies. To tap this part of the universe of users, we conducted site
visits with agency personnel to determine what sort of institutional use was
being made of the DOT. Second, the GPO sold the DOT in two ways: directly
to individual parties through single-order purchases and indirectly
through bulk orders from GPO distribution centers and college textbook
OCR for page 47
Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
47
distribution firms. For the direct sales to individuals a record was kept by
GPO of the name and address of the purchasing party, the date of sale, and
the number of copies sold. No such records were kept by the resale
agencies (GPO distribution centers, which are effectively retail bookstores,
and college textbook distribution firms). To tap this part of the DOT user
population, we surveyed a probability sample of the single-order purchas-
ers of the DOT; in addition, we solicited information from casual samples
of two types of known DOT users: those identified by staff of the State
Occupational Information Coordinating Committee and those identified
by researchers who had published material using the DOT.
In order to interpret responses from a probability sample of single-order
purchasers of the DOT as being representative of the universe of DOT users
outside federal agencies, it is necessary to make two assumptions: first, that
purchasers of the DOT from resale agencies do not diner in the aggregate
from those who purchased the DOT directly from the GPO; and second, that
purchasers do not differ in the aggregate from nonpurchasers who use the
DOT. The first assumption creates no difficulty; there is no reason to believe
that the manner of purchase seriously affects the nature of use. The second
assumption is somewhat more troubling. In many cases the purchasing
party was an organization or division within an organization. In such a
case many people may use a single copy of the DOT. As we note below, our
sampling strategy was designed to elicit a response from the primary user
of the DOT within an organization, but it was not tightly controlled and is
hence subject to an unknown amount of error. Despite these problems we
regard our coverage of various types of users of the DOT as fully adequate
for our purpose, which was to ascertain the major uses made of the
document.
Probability Survey of DOT Purchasers
To create a sampling frame for the survey of DOT purchasers, a list of
names and addresses of persons who bought the DOT and other
occupational analysis products still in print during the year period July
1977 through June 1978 was obtained from GPO. The earlier date was
constrained by the lack of suitable records prior to July 1977, and the
ending date of June 1978 was chosen so as to allow potential respondents a
chance to become familiar with the item they purchased before being
queried. With this sampling frame we were guaranteed both an address
and an interest in occupational analysis products, as evidenced by the fact
that the individual or organization had purchased an OA publication.
Given the December 1977 publication date of the fourth edition DOT, the
OCR for page 48
48
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OCR for page 49
Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
49
use of this sampling base indicates that we sampled from among those
persons who purchased this edition during its first 6 months of availability.
The potential respondent universe included 11,476 names. Names and
addresses were selected from this list by random sampling with probability
of selection proportionate to the number of copies purchased. A relatively
small sample of purchasers (N = 472) was drawn on the grounds that a
high return rate from a small sample would produce more accurate results
than a low return rate from a large sample and that our resources were not
sufficient to ensure a high return rate unless we started with a relatively
small sample. Our strategy proved successful in that we ultimately
achieved a 74 percent completion rate, which is very high for mail surveys.
The selection procedure entailed sending one questionnaire (shown in
Appendix A) to each name and address selected regardless of how many
copies were purchased. The questionnaire was sent to the listed address
with instructions in the cover letter to forward the questionnaire to an
appropriate individual, i.e., an actual user of the DOT. This instruction was
necessary because the name of the purchaser provided on the GPO list was
not necessarily the person for whom the publication was ordered; we had
no control over which individual actually received the questionnaire.
Interviews, Case Studies, and a Survey of Institutional Users
Because the GPO list was limited to single-order purchasers, we supple-
mented the survey results by eliciting information from large institutional
users of the DOT outside the Employment Service. This task was
approached in two ways. First, the stab conducted interviews at
organizations that are large users of OA products (mainly federal agencies
in the Washington, D.C., area). In addition, detailed case studies of DOT
use were conducted at the federal agencies that ordered large numbers of
copies of the fourth edition DOT (see Figure 4-1~: the Bureau of
Apprenticeship and Training of the Employment and Training Adminis-
tration, the Bureau of Disability Insurance of the Social Security
Administration, and the Veterans Administration. (The Department of
Navy never distributed its copies, so no case study was conducted there.)
Interviews were generally conducted with the director and other members
of the professional staff of the division in which DOT use was most
prevalent (see Appendix B for detailed reports). Second, a copy of the
purchaser questionnaire was sent to a list of 338 names generated by
contacting the various state offices of the State Occupational Information
Coordinating Committee (so~cc). The sonic names were solicited to
enlarge the number of responses from persons within various state
organizations with particular knowledge of or interest in the use of the
OCR for page 50
so
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
DOT in their state or whose work might be seriously affected if the DOT
were to be discontinued. Whereas the GPO sample was a probability sample
of purchasers, the sock list had the very different purpose of getting the
questionnaire to institutional users who might not be well represented on
the purchaser list.
Survey of Researchers
A final group of users of the DOT outside the Employment Service is
academic and other researchers. In order to identify this population a
query was sent to a group of researchers who had used the DOT in their
published or unpublished work as well as to those researchers who have
discussed or criticized the DOT; the target population was identified
informally on the basis of staff and committee knowledge. In addition, the
staff contacted purchasers of the DOT who appeared on the GPO list with
the title Dr. or Professor or who were located in a college or university
academic department. A letter to researchers requested reprints or
citations of published and unpublished work in which the DOT was used as
a research tool. This material was used in the compilation of an annotated
bibliography of research uses of the DOT (see Appendix C).
TIMETABLE OF SURVEY PROCEDURES
Preliminary versions of the questionnaire were reviewed by members of
the committee and by members of the Department of Labor Technical
Steering Committee (representatives from the departments of Labor,
Commerce, and Health, Education, and Welfare). The questionnaire was
revised, both in the wording and sequencing of questions, and a pretest
version was sent to 50 randomly drawn names from the GPO mailing list on
December 11, 1978. On January 5, 1979, a follow-up questionnaire was
sent to those of the original 50 names who had not responded to the
· . .
previous inquiry.
On January 9, 1979, a revised version of the questionnaire and a
supporting statement were sent to the Department of Labor (DOL) SO that
DOL staff could initiate clearance procedures with the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget (OMB). Clearance was granted from DOE on February 13
and from OMB on March 21. On the basis of the pretest results, minor
revisions were made, and the final printed version of the questionnaire was
sent to the sample of DOT purchasers and the sock group on April 13,
1979. Mail follow-ups to those who had not responded were sent out on
May 8 and June 5. A final telephone follow-up of the DOT purchaser
sample was conducted during the week of July 1~20; those respondents
OCR for page 51
Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
51
agreeing to fill out the questionnaire were sent another copy. As of August
15, 1979, 632 questionnaires had been returned, representing a 74-percent
response rate for the DOT purchasers and an 84-percent response rate for
the sock group.)
INSTITUTIONAL USES OF THE DOT: A SAMPLE OF
PURCHASERS
The purchaser survey was designed to answer four basic questions: (1) who
uses the DOT and for what reasons, (2) what is the nature and frequency of
DOT use, (3) how essential is its use, and (4) how adequate is it for the
purposes for which it is used? This section provides the results of the
survey of those DOT purchasers who reported that they had ever used the
DOT (90 percent of all the responding DOT purchasers).2 Appendix A
presents the response frequencies for each item in the questionnaire.
A wide variety of organizations find the DOT helpful in their work.
Tables 4-1 and 4-2 provide information on the type of employer for which
the DOT purchasers work and the type of work they do. Among the most
frequent types of employers are educational institutions (42 percent),
government agencies (20 percent), private for-profit companies (13
percent), libraries (13 percent), and nonprofit organizations (10 percent).
Purchasers did a variety of types of work, the most prevalent being career
and vocational counseling (30 percent), library reference (18 percent),
management (15 percent), and employment placement (8 percent).
Table 4-3 provides an overall view of the type of work done by
purchasers in various kinds of organizations. Users in educational
institutions are employed primarily in career and vocational counseling
and guidance. In the educational institutions surveyed, 57 percent of the
DOT users do this type of work. Another 13 percent are engaged in
Twenty-six percent of the DOT purchaser sample did not respond. A few of these
nonresponses were due to the respondent's being too busy to fill out the questionnaire. A few
other respondents reported that they did not use the DOT and thus could not respond to the
survey. However, the vast majority (96 percent) of nonrespondents never responded to any of
the three mailings and could not be contacted by phone. It is reasonable therefore to infer
that many of these questionnaires never reached their target owing, no doubt, in large part to
the lack of specificity in the GPO list of purchasers, which often did not list an individual's
name. This problem was particularly difficult given the number of large institutional
purchasers of the DOT included in the sample.
2Because of the lack of specificity of the sampling frame (the GPO list of names and
addresses), a question was included on the survey to identify Employment Service employees.
Since the primary interest in this section is in exploring DOT use by agencies or organizations
other than the Employment Service, the eight respondents who reported that they worked for
their state Employment Service were excluded from the analysis. See chapter 3 for details on
Employment Service use of the DOT.
OCR for page 52
52
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
TABLE 4-! Distribution of DOT Purchasers, by
Type of Employer (N = 309)
Type of Employer
Percentage
Library
Educational institution
Government
Private for-profit business
Nonprofit business
Other types of employers
TOTAL
101
13
42
20
14
10
2
vocational education. The DOT users in government agencies at the federal,
state, and local levels, on the other hand, are engaged in a variety of
different kinds of work, primarily rehabilitation counseling (mostly at the
state level), employment placement and career counseling (mostly federal),
and the projection of labor force trends (mostly county/local government).
In contrast, users in private industry are employed quite differently: two
thirds are in administration, including personnel or general management
and compensation administration. The occupational identifications of DOT
users are reflected in the professional associations to which the respon
TABLE 4-2 Distribution of DOT Purchasers, by
Type of Work (N = 307) a
Type of Work
Percentage
Career or vocational counseling
Rehabilitation counseling
Vocational education
Employment placement
Management/compensation
Projections/occupational
information dissemination
Librarianship
Teaching/research
Other work
TOTAL
30
7
7
8
15
7
18
101
a Total N of 309, with two no answers.
OCR for page 53
Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
53
dents belong; the most frequently mentioned associations include the
American Personnel and Guidance Association, the American Vocational
Association, the National Rehabilitation Association, and National
Education Association.
HOW THE DOT IS USED
Given the nature of the sample (purchasers of the fourth edition DOT), it is
not surprising that 88 percent of the respondents report that they have
used the fourth edition. The bulk of respondents report that they make
more frequent use of the fourth edition than of earlier editions. Of the
fourth edition purchasers, 43 percent note that they use the fourth edition
regularly, while another 45 percent report occasional use in the past year.
At the time of the survey, some organizations were still making use of the
first two volumes of the third edition: more than 46 percent of the sample
report that they had used either the first or second volume of the third
edition DOT in the past year (third edition Volumes 1 and 2 include the
definitions of titles, the occupational classification, industry index, and the
worker trait information). For those respondents dependent on worker
trait information, a supplement of the third edition DOT (U.S. Department
of Labor, 1966) is the only available source, since at the time of the survey
the fourth edition worker trait data had not yet been published.
Table 4-4 presents a description of the use of the component parts of the
DOT by purchasers engaged in various types of work. The DOT job titles
and definitions are by far the most heavily used parts of the DOT: 95
percent of those responding report that they use the dictionary function of
the DOT. Moreover, use of the job titles and definitions is heavy regardless
of the type of work performed. Another frequently utilized part of the DOT
is the classification scheme itself. Three fifths of the respondents indicate
that they use the DOT classification and codes for administrative and
statistical reporting reasons. The only groups not reporting heavy use of
the DOT codes and classification are librarians and those engaged in
management or compensation administration. The worker function data
(the complexity of the relationship of the occupation to data, people, and
things) or their rearrangement into the worker trait groups is used by an
identifiable minority of the respondents. Not surprisingly, the types of
work for which these parts of the DOT are most useful are those concerned
with the transferability of skills, that is, in matching an individual to
employment on the basis of his or her previous jobs and/or assessed skill
level. Counselors (especially those in rehabilitative counseling) and
educators (in the career counseling field) are among those most likely to
employ the worker function scales. The industry designation and the
OCR for page 54
54
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OCR for page 82
82
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
To obtain a sample of occupations representative of the U.S. occupation-
al structure, Tinsley and Weiss (1974) drew occupations from each of the
first-digit DOT code groups in proportion to the number of workers in the
United States employed in those groups. (The authors did not specify how
they determined the distribution of workers in these groups.) The code was
also used to determine job similarity in a study of the sources and benefits
of workers' skills (Roomkin and Somers, 1974~. Even social scientists far
removed from occupational analysis and economics have found the DOT
codes useful. For instance, clinical psychologists Brown and Pool (1974)
matched brain-injured subjects with a control group on premorbid
occupational level. However, they did not specifically define "occupational
level."
JOB TITLES AND DEFINITIONS
The job titles and definitions provide researchers with a standard system
for identifying and describing occupations. This information has been
incorporated into several vocational guidance tools (e.g., the Vocational
Card Sort (Cooper, 1976), the Non-Sexist Vocational Card Sort (Dewey,
1974), and the Occupational Reinforcer Patterns (Borgen et al., 1972~. In
addition, Remenyi and Fraser (1977) examined the effects of occupational
information on students' occupational perceptions by adding DOT
definitions to the titles, and Sterne (1974) used the titles in a study of the
validity of the Kuder Occupational Interest Inventory.
WORKER TRAITS AND WORKER FUNCTIONS
The worker trait data and worker function scales have received by far
more attention in the research community than any other part of the DOT.
Data, People, and Things
The worker function scales, which measure a job's complexity in relation
to data, people, and things, have been used in many capacities. Sociologists
and economists have attempted to describe the distribution of these job
characteristics in the U.S. labor market. For instance, Dubnoff (1978)
found that a job's complexity is inversely related to the percentage of
employees who are female, and Lucas (1974) reported that complexity in
relation to people is negatively correlated with percentage of employees
who are black. Brown (1975) examined the distribution by race and sex of
workers who hold discretionary jobs, defined as those jobs with a data or
things rating of less than 5 or with a people rating of less than 6.
OCR for page 83
Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
83
In a study of the status of jobs held typically by men and by women,
McLaughlin (1978) used a modified version of the worker function scales.
Spenner (1977, 1980) included the worker functions among his variables in
a series of studies on intergenerational occupational transmission. He
found that complexity is a factor only in the father-son occupational
relationship.
The worker functions have been useful in applied research as well. Using
the worker function scales and training time to generate five orders of job
similarity, Fine (1957) proposed an approach to the transferability of skills
that would be useful in vocational counseling and in designing training
programs. Hemmens et al. (1978) compared the job tasks and skills of
social policy planners, coded according to the worker functions, with
training received in professional schools and found serious discrepancies.
Modified versions of the DOT worker function scales were also incorporat-
ed into Dumas and Muthard's (1971) job analysis method for health-
related professions.
A number of studies adopted the concept of worker functions without
the actual scales. Kohn and Schooler (1969) developed a measure of
substantive complexity, closely modeled after the DOT measures, to study
workers' values and orientations. In a later paper (Kohn and Schooler,
1973) on the relationship between occupational experience and psychologi-
cal functioning, they used the DOT worker function scales as a source of
external validation for their own index as well as for assessing the
complexity of past jobs. Mortimer (1974, 1976), in her work on
intergenerational occupational transmission patterns, used the DOT inter-
est variables to determine the functional foci of work (that is, the
complexity of a job's relationship to data, people, and things). Finally,
Prediger (1976) used worker trait and worker function variables to create a
two-dimensional map relating workers and jobs.
Training Time
The DOT'S two training time scales, general educational development
(GED) and specific vocational preparation (svP), have proven to be
important sources of information for the social scientist. In studying the
educational and skill level structure of the U.S. labor market, both Kolstad
(1977) and Dubnoff (1978) found that GED and svP are negatively
correlated with percentage of employees in each occupation who are
female. Lucas's (1977) hedonic wage equations indicate that workers
receive higher monetary as well as "psychic" wages for higher levels of
GED and svP. The svP measure was used in a similar study of wage
attainment by Stolzenberg (1975~. Kalleberg and Hudis (1979) reported
OCR for page 84
84
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
that for men in their late careers, svP has a significant effect on wage
increase in general, especially for those who did not change occupations or
employers.
Prompted by Miller's (1971b) comparison of workers' educational
attainment and the required GED of their occupations, which implies that
many members of the labor market are overtrained, Kalleberg and
Sorenson (1973) and Coburn (1975) studied the effects of discrepancies
between training and requirements on job attitudes and health. Finally,
GED was found to be positively correlated with the employment stability of
male parolees and probationers (G. Gottfredson and D. Lipstein, 1975~.
Other Worker Traits
The other worker traits have appeared in the literature most often in
descriptions of labor force composition and as variables in economists'
wage equations. Using DOt temperament 3 (supervision) and 4 (autono-
my), Dubnoff (1978) found that the relative growth of women's employ-
ment is likely to be greatest in occupations in which supervisor was high
and least in occupations requiring worker autonomy. An earlier study
revealed that negative working conditions and heavy physical demands are
in general less common in jobs held by women but are almost as frequent
for jobs held by black women as for those held by white men (Lucas,
1974~. Lucas (1977) later reported that workers receive higher wages in
compensation for repetitive routine (temperaments) and obnoxious physi-
cal environments (working conditions and physical demands). Hartog
(1977) presented empirical support for his multicapability theory of
income distribution using the DOT aptitude scales matched with census
income data.
USE OF DOT CONCEPTS IN OTHER SCALES AND CLASSIFICATIONS
DOT concepts have been incorporated into a number of scales, inventories,
and classification systems. The Minnesota Job Requirements Question-
naire (MIRQ) assesses each of the nine DOT worker aptitude requirements
by five items. Occupational reinforcer patterns, which describe the
stimulus conditions available in the work environment for the satisfaction
of worker needs, are based on the combined Minnesota Job Description
Questionnaire ratings of supervisors and/or employees. Occupational
reinforcer patterns for 148 occupations are presented alphabetically by
OCR for page 85
Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
85
DOT title (Borgen et al., 1972; Rosen et al., 1972~. Bemis et al. (1973, 1974)
developed a structure of 62 occupational ability patterns using the DOT
aptitudes and the worker trait groups. Later, Dawis and Lofquist (1974,
1975) cross-classified the occupational ability patterns and the occupation-
al reinforcer patterns, obtaining as a result psychologically homogeneous
groups of occupations ("axons). They embedded the DOT'S occupational
groupings-worker traits and worker functions in the scheme now
known as the Minnesota Occupational Classification System (MOCS). The
American College Testing Program Occupational Classification System
(ACT-OCS) incorporates all occupations listed in the third edition DOT in a
structure derived from analyses of the worker traits and worker functions
(Prediger, 1976~. Holland's six-category occupational classification, based
on a theory of personality types, has often been subdivided on the basis of
GED level (G. Gottfredson, 1977; G. Gottfredson et al., 1975; L.
Gottfredson, 1978~; Viernstein (1972) has developed two methods for
translating DOT codes into Holland codes. In assessing the status of
occupations, Caston (1978) replaced the Duncan socioeconomic index
with the GED and svP scales. The DOT has also been recommended as a
tool in coding occupations and industries into the detailed 1970 census
categories (Featherman et al., 1975; Temme, 1975) and the International
Standard Classification of Occupations (Treiman, 1977~.
Vocational psychologists have turned to the DOT in developing other
counseling aids. The Vocational Card Sort (Cooper, 1976), the Non-Sexist
Vocational Card Sort (Dewey, 1974) and the SPART inventory (Ekpo-Ufot,
1976) are several examples. Time Share Corporation's (1976) computer-
based Guidance Information System makes available information from the
DOT to aid clients in choosing appropriate occupational categories.
Finally, aspects of the DOT have been incorporated into a number of
occupational classifications and occupational dictionaries developed else-
where. We have already discussed the influence of the DOT on the
Standard Occupational Classification (U.S. Department of Commerce,
1977~. In addition, the DOT served as a model for the International
Standard Classification of Occupations (International Labour Office, 1958,
1968~. Two foreign occupational dictionaries are heavily influenced by the
DOT: the Japanese dictionary of occupational titles is an almost verbatim
translation of the second edition DOT, and the Canadian Classification and
Dictionary of Occupations 1971 (Canadian Minister of Manpower and
Immigration, 1971) acknowledges the use of certain features of the
American DOT. In fact, the Canadian Dictionary includes for each
occupation a "qualifications profile" consisting of ratings of GED, SVP,
aptitudes, interests, temperaments, and physical demands.
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EVALUATION OF DOT DATA
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
Although the DOT has proven to be a valuable source of information for
social science research, there are serious drawbacks that prevent even more
widespread use. The incompatibility of the DOT classification with other
classification systems and their accompanying social statistics seriously
limits its use, since researchers are often interested in relating the worker
trait and worker function scales to data collected on general population
samples. For instance, until recently it has been difficult to relate the vast
wealth of census data to the DOT scales. A number of projects have
attempted to cross-code the two systems. The Spenner-Temme file
(Spenner et al., 1980) makes available weighted estimates of 17 occupa-
tional characteristics for the 595 1970 Census occupation industry
categories (see also Temme (1975~. These include 10 third edition DOT
characteristics: DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS; GED; SVP; and temperaments
1, 2, 3, 4, and 8.6 Spenner is currently expanding the file to include 20
additional DOT characteristics. The methods used in generating these
measures as well as some evidence on their reliability and validity are
presented by Spenner (1980~. Miller (1971a) describes work coding the
April 1971 Current Population Survey with 1970 Census codes and third
edition DOT codes (the actual coding was done by occupational analysis
field center personnel) and discusses the advantages of being able to move
from one system to another. Similarly, Broom et al. (no date, 1977) had
the 1971 Australian Census Classification of Occupations (ACCO) coded
with DOT DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS scores in order to study new aspects
of occupational mobility patterns. The DOT data would be of much greater
use in social science research if steps were taken to make the DOT
classification system compatible with other widely used occupational
classifications. The newly developed Standard Occupational Classification
(U.S. Department of Commerce, 1977) goes some way toward meeting this
objective.
A second major drawback to the use of DOT data in research is the lack
of reliability estimates for the worker trait and worker function scales. The
development of these scales has been so poorly documented that
researchers cannot be altogether confident about the validity of their
results. Although a number of articles trace the history of the current DOT
data (Fine, 1955, 1968b; Fine and Heinz, 1957, 1958; Scoville, 1965;
Studdiford, 1951, 1953), they have been largely descriptive. Very little
fin Appendix F we offer similar estimates for eight fourth edition DOT occupational
characteristics: DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS; GED; SVP; STRENGTH; PHYSDEM (physical
demands); and ENVIRON (environmental conditions). See the introduction to the appendix for
additional details.
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Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
87
empirical evidence supporting the scales' reliablity and validity is
available. Social scientists have been quick to point out this deficiency
(Desmond and Weiss, 1973; Pratzner and Stump, 1977; Scoville, 1966;
Walther, 1960; Witt and Naherny, 1975), which has undoubtedly
discouraged more extensive use of these scales.
Several studies have attempted to remedy this deficiency. Sainty's (1974)
validation of the third edition worker trait groups was performed by
comparing its factor structure with the factor structure of a random
sample of 800 of the 4,000 jobs used as the basis for the DOT. Fine (1957)
found that four experienced occupational analysts were able to determine
Minnesota Occupational Rating Scale values fairly reliably for 37 jobs
from Functional Occupational Classification Project data (worker trait
and work performed dimensions), and Broom et al. (1977) attempted to
validate the worker function scales in terms of the worker traits required
by different jobs in the DOT.
These studies, however, mark only the beginning of an effort needed to
assess the reliability and validity of DOT data and scales. Chapter 7
describes these issues in greater detail and presents the committee's own
reliability studies.
USE AND DISTRIBUTION OF OTHER OCCUPATIONAL
ANALYSIS PRODUCTS
In addition to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles the Occupational
Analysis Branch of the Division of Occupational Analysis publishes or
distributes a series of career brochures and pamphlets. Some of these
publications are initiated by the national office, while others are initiated
locally, either by field center staff or by local Employment Service
personnel in consultation with field center staff. The Job Search Branch of
the Division of Occupational Analysis is also responsible for distributing
brochures, news releases, and other labor market information directly to
occupational information consumers (primarily local Employment Service
offices). This section provides a brief description of how these publications
are distributed and who uses them.
The committee approached the task of determining the use of
occupational analysis products other than the DOT in three ways:
1. The Government Printing Office (GPO) was asked to provide a list of
names and addresses of those persons who had purchased at least one copy
of a publication of the Division of Occupational Analysis during the period
July 1977 through June 1978. Estimates were then derived of the total
number of requests and total number of copies purchased during this
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
period. In addition, estimates of the total number of publications printed
were obtained from Department of Labor representatives.
2. As part of our probability survey of DOT purchasers and survey of
state-level users, we asked respondents to indicate the frequency with
which they use various other publications of the occupational analysis
program.
3. During interviews at local Employment Service offices, ES personnel
were asked about their knowledge and frequency of use of various OA
publications.
OCCUPATIONAL ANALYSIS BRANCH
The Occupational Analysis Branch of the Division of Occupational
Analysis publishes a series of career-related brochures and pamphlets.
These products range from in-house publications, such as the Handbook
for Analyzing Jobs, to career brochures, such as Career Opportunities in the
Telephone and Telegraph Industries, Occupations in Library Science, and
Career Opportunities in the Trucking Industry. (For a listing of OA
publications, see Appendix D.) Although most of the national career
publications still in print are available for sale through the Government
Printing Office, the bulk of these brochures are distributed through local
Employment Service offices, including model job information sites. This
material is also distributed on a more informal basis by occupational
analysts at the national office to various other government agencies and
other organizations, including those that helped to produce the brochures.
Occupational analysts, for example, worked with representatives from the
Division of Associated Health Professions (Bureau of Health Resources
Administration) and the National Health Council in developing the
Health Careers Guidebook and with the Environmental Protection Agency
in the development of the Environmental Protection Careers Guidebook;
copies of the brochures were sent to these agencies. The Employment and
Training Administration's office of information also distributes single
copies of OA brochures to those who request them. On the basis of the
results from the DOT purchaser sample and the survey of state-level users it
appears that the biggest consumers of these publications (other than
Employment Service personnel) are career and vocational counselors,
career educators, rehabilitation counselors, and employment placement
personnel. For example, the Job Corps national office recently began
distributing copies of the Career Opportunities and Career Guidebook
Series to all Job Corps centers, regional offices, and agencies.
The state-initiated brochures also receive their primary distribution
through local Employment Service offices. In California, for example,
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Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
89
publications relevant to Employment Service activities are automatically
distributed to a mailing list of local offices in the federal region in which
the field center is located. The field center distributes these publications
free to anyone who requests a small number, most notably school
vocational counselors or other personnel involved with career guidance.
JOB SEARCH BRANCH
The Job Search Branch within the Division of Occupational Analysis
distributes labor market information in a variety of forms. Working with
the Employment Service's job bank master file, personnel of the Job Search
Branch produce and distribute four major job search products (see chapter
5~. The Job Search Branch sends out 700 copies of the Job Bank Openings
Summary in microfiche form each month. The consumers of this
information include primarily Employment Service offices as well as CETA
prime sponsors, state and federal agencies (e.g., the Bureau of Vocational
Rehabilitation and the Veteran Administration), and CETA contractors.
More than 400 copies of Job Bank Frequently Listed Openings (IOB-FLO),
in either microfiche or hard copy and in either national or local format, are
distributed monthly to the same kinds of organizations receiving Job Bank
Openings. About 165,000 copies of Occupations in Demand are distributed
monthly, primarily to Employment Service local offices but also to
secondary and college-level guidance counselors and other job placement
personnel. Finally, 70 sets of the Labor Market Information Analytical
Table Series (LMI-ATS) are sent monthly to the research and analysis chiefs
of the state EM! offices.
Table 4-1 1 presents the results of the surveys of the DOT purchaser and
sock samples regarding use of other occupational analysis materials as
well as information collected from the Department of Labor (on the total
number of copies printed) and from the Government Printing Office (on
the number of copies sold between July 1977 and June 1978~. Since the
primary distribution point for these publications is local Employment
Service offices (see chapter 3 for details on Employment Service use of
these products), it is not surprising that few of the large number of printed
copies were purchased through GPO during the period reviewed. Of those
publications still in print, only Job Descriptions and Organizational
Analysis for Hospitals, published in 1971, is still in relatively high demand
through GPO. Career Opportunities in the Telephone arid Telegraph
Industries, published recently, is also requested more often than the other
publications. Health Careers Guidebook, the most recent update of which
was published in 1979, is also a popular item, as indicated by the large
number of copies printed for distribution. One reason for the low sales of
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
TABLE 4-! ~ Percentage Using Other Occupational Analysis (OA)
Products a
Total
DOT SOICC Number Gal
OA Publication Purchasers Group Printed b Sales C
Career Opportunities in the
Telephone and Telegraph
Industries (1977) 8 14 20,000 357
Career Opportunities in the Trucking
Industry(1978) 12 18 20,000 204
Handbookfor Analyzing Jobs
(1972) 15 25 7,500 -
Health Careers Guidebook(1973) 24 25 72,000
Job Descriptions and Organizational
AnalysisforHospitals(1971) 11 21 15,000 560
Job Guidefor Young Workers
(1970) 13 19 40,000 -
Occupations in Electronic
Computing Systems (1972) 9 15 25,000 138
Occupations in Library Science
(1973) 9 10 20,000 75
Task Analysis inventories (Series 1)
(1973) 7 17 - 76
Job Bank Openings Summary
(monthly) 17 29
Frequently Listed Openings
(monthly) 19 31
Occupations in Demand (monthly) 28 37
Labor Market Information
Analytical Table Series
(monthly) 16 28
N (309) (186)
a Users of other occupational analysis products are defined as those reporting frequent or
occasional use of publication in the past year. Those not using the specified publication
include those who never use it, those who are not familiar with it, and those not respond
ing to the question.
b The total number printed are estimates made in consultation with Department of
Labor representatives. Publications with no estimate are monthlies (see text for distribu
tion figure) or the number is unknown.
CGPo sales are defined as number of copies of publication sold through the Government
Printing Office during the year period July 1977 through June 1978. Publications with no
estimates are out of print or unavailable through GPO.
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Use of the DOT Outside the U.S. Employment Service
91
some publications is that they are nearing the end of their run and are due
to be revised.
The data in the first two columns of Table 4-11 indicate that small but
identifiable subsets of the DOT purchasers and state-level users recognize
and use these other occupational analysis products. The Job Search
Branch monthlies are used more frequently than other publications, but
Occupations in Demand is the only publication recognized and used by at
least one third of the group of state-level users.
SUMMARY
Since its first publication as a job placement tool for the U.S. Employment
Service, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles has been used for a wide
variety of additional purposes by many individuals and organizations
outside the Employment Service. This chapter describes these uses on the
basis of data derived from three primary sources: (1) a probability survey
of purchasers of the fourth edition DOT, (2) a series of interviews with
personnel at federal agencies targeted as DOT users, supplemented by a
survey of state-level DOT users, and (3) a survey of researchers and review
of published and unpublished work using or criticizing the DOT.
The results from the probability survey of DOT purchasers suggest that a
wide variety of organizations use the DOT in their work, especially
educational institutions, government agencies, private for-profit compa-
nies, and nonprofit agencies. The DOT users in these organizations are
engaged mainly in career and vocational counseling, library reference,
rehabilitation counseling, personnel management, and employment place-
ment.
The DOT iS most heavily used for its dictionary function: 95 percent of
the DOT purchasers report that they use the DOT'S job titles and definitions.
Another frequently used part of the DOT iS the classification and code
structure: three fifths of the purchasers report using the DOT codes
primarily for administrative and statistical reporting reasons. Although
certain parts of the DOT are used more than others, there is an identifiable
subset of organizations using every major DOT component.
A total of 88 percent of the DOT purchasers, especially those in
rehabilitation counseling, vocational education, labor force projections,
and occupational information dissemination and educators in the counsel-
ing field, reported that discontinuing the DOT would adversely affect their
work; 36 percent reported that the impact would be large or that
discontinuance would seriously disrupt their work. Additionally, two
thirds of the respondents reported that the DOT was very adequate for the
purpose for which they use it. In offering suggestions as to how the DOT
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
might be improved, a majority of the purchaser sample indicated that
career ladders should be incorporated into future editions; a strong interest
was also expressed in having future editions bound in hard cover.
Interviews with institutional users revealed four major institutional uses
of the DOT: (1) Agencies such as the Bureau of Apprenticeship and
Training use the DOT for employment training purposes. (2) Some agencies
such as the Bureau of Disability Insurance of the Social Security
Administration use the DOT for disability determination. (3) Other
agencies such as the Veterans Administration use the DOT for rehabilita-
tion and employment counseling. (4) Vocational educators use the DOT for
program planning, counseling, and curriculum development. The results
from the survey of state-level users corroborates these findings: the two
primary uses are for counseling and vocational education. The state-level
users make substantial use of the job titles, definitions, and codes (as do the
respondents from the DOT purchaser sample); they also report frequent use
of svP estimates of training time.
The DOT has also been used by sociologists, psychologists, and
economists in a broad range of research activities. The DOT code is
frequently used to describe the socioeconomic distribution of subject
samples and to match experimental groups with control groups on
occupational class and skill level. The worker traits and worker functions
have been used in many capacities, most notably in describing the
distribution of job characteristics across various sectors of the labor force
and in examining shifts in labor force composition. Economists often turn
to these scales when studying the determinants of wages, and psychologists
use this information in studying the relationship between occupational
characteristics and psychological functioning as well as effects on
performance. In addition, the DOT has been a valuable resource in the
more applied areas of vocational psychology and counseling. A number of
new scales, inventories, and classification systems have also incorporated
DOT data and scales.
Although the Dictionary of Occupational Titles has become useful in
many organizations and agencies outside the Employment Service, there is
no firm evidence that the other products of the occupational analysis
program have reached a similarly large audience. Although the monthly
job information summaries are widely distributed within the Employment
Service, they are used by a relatively small number of outside users. Career
brochures are not widely used either inside or outside the Employment
Service, yet each of these publications is used by an identifiable minority of
each of the user samples.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
occupational analysis
