Issues of Stability and Change in Interest Development‪.‬

Interest development is not an easily studied process. There are at least 4 methods for examining the process of stability and change over time: relative stability, absolute stability, profile stability, and structural stability. A program of research that focuses on examining these 4 types of stability is summarized relative to the issues pertinent to the development of vocational interests in children and adolescents. Vocational interests are a cornerstone of career interventions, wherein efforts are aimed at matching interests with majors and occupations. There are two general models differentiating interests: those viewing interests as traitlike commodities and those focusing on the development and maturation of interests. Person-environment models (Holland, 1985, 1997; Rounds & Tracey, 1990) view interests are fairly traitlike entities to be assessed and matched to the environment. Developmental theorists focus on how interests change over time (e.g., Savickas, 1999; Vondracek, Lerner, & Schulenberg, 1986) as a function of maturation and interaction with the environment. Thus, one set of models stresses stability and the other change. We argue that a focus on development necessitates an examination of both stability and change. Although these two concepts may seem redundant in that one is sometimes viewed as the absence of the other, this is not true at least with respect to the development of interests. There are at least four nonoverlapping conceptions of development: relative stability, absolute stability, profile stability, and structural stability. Changes in one or more of these dimensions may be evident, whereas the others can remain constant. We argue that to have a thorough representation of interest development, all four types of interest continuity must be examined. The present article is an exposition of these different types of stability and change as well as a review of one program of research (i.e., the first author's) on these areas as it applies to the development of interests in children and adolescents ages 8 to 18 years.