Project on Occupational Cognition : Sociological Aspects of Subjective Occupational Structures, 1973-1975

<P>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</P><br>To investigate occupational cognition, focusing upon how occupations (considered as complex social objects) are perceived, compared, represented, and are given meaning. In addition, the content and structure of beliefs about occupations are examined, looking especially at the degree to which the processes involved are socially shared. Subjects were sampled from a fourfold typology of occupations defined by the factors of `socio-economic status' and `people orientation'.<br><B>Main Topics</B>:<BR><br>Attitudinal/Behavioural Questions<br>
None of the techniques used was variable-oriented. The datasets on the tape include:<br>
1. Pairwise Similarities<br>
Pairs of occupational titles are presented to the subject, and he is asked to assess how similar each pair is.<br>
2. and 3. Rankings and Ratings of Occupational Titles<br>
Ranking and rating have been the routine and standard methods of investigating the perception of occupations in general, and occupational prestige in particular. Rating was either 'Direct', e.g., marks out of 100, or by sorting into ordered categories.<br>
4. Sentence Frame Data<br>
Respondents were asked to fit each of 25 occupational titles into 15 sentence frames forming a set of 375 statements. For each statement the subject was to tell how often it held true (always, usually, seldom or never).<br>
5. Summary Data on Individual Pairwise Similarities Matrices<br>
6. Triadic Similarities Data<br>
In the method of triads, the subject is presented with subsets of three occupational titles and asked to make a specified judgement about them.<br>
7. Hierarchical Clustering Data<br>
This method stems from Rapoport and Fillenbaum. A 'tree' is an undirected connected graph without cycles; the subject is asked to construct trees of naturally belonging and increasingly general, sets of occupational titles, finally joining them up into one single group.<br>
8. Free Sorting of 32 Occupational Titles<br>
Respondents were asked to group 32 cards in any way that seemed natural to them.<br>
9. Free sorting of 50 Occupational Predicates<br>
To find out some elementary properties of the ways in which people divide up the occupational world (differentiation) and categorise their experience of it (classification).<br>
Background Variables<br>
Age, sex, present occupation or course of study, father's occupation.