Values Clarification

1. Abstract

The Values Clarification assessment framework, synthesized comprehensively in the seminal work by Sidney B. Simon, Leland W. Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum (1972), represents a cornerstone pedagogical and psychological paradigm designed to facilitate personal introspection, self-concordant decision-making, and vocational alignment. Originating from the educational and humanistic philosophy of Louis E. Raths and John Dewey, the battery combines two complementary evaluative methodologies: a multi-faceted life values ranking module (Exercise I) and an applied 45-item multidimensional vocational inventory (Exercise II, adapted from the classic Donald E. Super Work Values Inventory model).

Exercise I employs an ipsative, balanced incomplete block design consisting of 21 balanced sets of five comparative values (each item ranked from 1 = most valued to 5 = least valued), measuring 21 fundamental universal human values: Aesthetics, Ambition, Appearance, Broadmindedness, Competence, Creativity, Emotional Health, Equality, Ethics, Helpfulness, Honesty, Knowledge, Leadership, Leisure, Love, Physical Health, Popularity, Spirituality/Faith, Security, Self-Sufficiency, and Success. Exercise II operates as an normative, 45-item Likert-type instrument (rated on a 5-point metric from 1 = “Unimportant” to 5 = “Very Important”), systematically capturing 15 distinct vocational domains: Intellectual Stimulation, Altruism, Economic Return, Variety, Independence, Prestige, Esthetics, Associates, Security, Way of Life, Supervisory Relations, Surroundings, Achievement, Management, and Creativity.

Extensive psychometric investigations have established internal consistency reliability estimates ranging from moderate to high across the vocational subscales (α = .68 to .88), with test-retest stabilities spanning .74 to .90 across vocational cohorts. Factor analytic validation has consistently corroborated Super’s overarching higher-order structure, demonstrating strong convergent and discriminant validity with general personality traits, vocational interests (Holland’s RIASEC typologies), and occupational satisfaction metrics. This article reviews the conceptual roots, measurement models, structural validity, psychometric properties, and administrative protocols of the Values Clarification framework.

2. Keywords

Values Clarification, Work Values Inventory, Sidney B. Simon, Donald E. Super, Louis E. Raths, vocational psychology, personal values, career counseling, ipsative measurement, psychometrics, job satisfaction, intrinsic work values, extrinsic work values.

3. Authors

The foundational humanistic exercise battery and instructional strategies associated with this instrument were conceptualized and published by:

• Sidney B. Simon, Ed.D. — Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A pioneer in humanistic education, affective curriculum design, and human relations training, Dr. Simon popularized values clarification methods globally throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
• Leland W. Howe, Ph.D. — Scholar in educational theory, interpersonal relations, and organizational development, specializing in values integration across instructional environments.
• Howard Kirschenbaum, Ed.D. — Professor Emeritus at the Warner Graduate School of Education, University of Rochester; biographer of Carl Rogers, and an international authority on humanistic psychology, character education, and student-centered counseling.

The applied vocational dimension (Exercise II) operationalizes the construct domain initially developed by Donald E. Super, Ph.D. (1910–1994), seminal vocational psychologist at Teachers College, Columbia University, whose developmental theory of career choice and Work Values Inventory (WVI) provided the empirical architecture for assessing values in employment contexts.

4. Purpose

The overarching purpose of the Values Clarification instrument is to provide an empirical and experiential mechanism through which individuals discover, scrutinize, prioritize, and operationalize their core beliefs, aspirations, and behavioral imperatives. Rather than inculcating a predetermined moral code, the values clarification process functions as a metacognitive intervention. It addresses what Raths, Harmin, and Simon (1966) termed “value ambiguity”—a condition marked by apathy, indecisiveness, inconsistency, over-conformity, and alienation in modern social systems.

From an applied clinical, counseling, and organizational perspective, the battery serves several critical functions:

• Career Guidance and Vocational Placement: Enables adolescents, university students, and transitioning adults to evaluate the concordance between their internal reward preferences (e.g., intellectual autonomy, altruistic impact, creative problem-solving) and real-world occupational duties, substantially mitigating early career burnout and occupational disengagement.
• Counseling and Psychotherapeutic Exploration: Acts as an introspective probe in existential, humanistic, and cognitive-behavioral therapies to resolve cognitive dissonance, interpersonal conflict, and role confusion. Clarifying values helps clients identify discrepancies between their stated priorities (e.g., family, spiritual growth, emotional wellness) and their actual temporal allocations.
• Executive Coaching and Leadership Development: Aids organizational leaders in evaluating managerial style, conflict-resolution mechanisms, and corporate culture alignment. The 15 work-value subscales provide granular profiles of what motivates managers—such as prestige, direct leadership/management, or physical working environment.
• Empirical Research into Human Motivation: Provides researchers in industrial-organizational psychology and developmental psychometrics with structured quantitative indicators to examine cross-cultural value shifts, gender differences in work motivation, and longitudinal predictors of job satisfaction and occupational tenure.

5. Psychological Construct

The construct of a value represents an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state (Rokeach, 1973; Schwartz, 1992). The Values Clarification measurement tool partitions the broader value domain into two interrelated systems: comprehensive life values (Exercise I) and context-specific work values (Exercise II).

Exercise I: The 21 Core Life Values

The 21 dimensions of Exercise I assess primary life priorities through a forced comparative ranking procedure across 21 subsets:

• Aesthetics: The deliberate appreciation and enjoyment of artistic beauty, structural elegance, and sensory harmony for its own inherent merit.
• Ambition: An intense internal drive toward challenging achievements, social mobility, and milestone attainment.
• Appearance: Conscious concern with personal physical grooming, aesthetic self-presentation, and visual impression management.
• Broadmindedness: Cognitive flexibility, tolerance of divergent worldviews, open-minded receptivity to change, and respect for pluralistic perspectives.
• Competence: Self-efficacy, mastery of essential tasks, and personal effectiveness in executing cognitive or physical demands.
• Creativity: Imaginative generation of original ideas, artistic innovation, and unconventional problem solutions.
• Emotional Health: Psychological equilibrium, tranquility of mind, adaptive coping strategies, and freedom from debilitating psychological distress.
• Equality: Societal fairness, social justice, and the promotion of identical human rights and opportunities regardless of demographic background.
• Ethics: Principled moral conduct, unwavering dedication to personal and professional integrity, and adherence to normative standards of right action.
• Helpfulness: Prosocial behavior, altruism, and dedicated expenditure of energy on behalf of vulnerable others or community well-being.
• Honesty: Interpersonal authenticity, veracity, transparency, and freedom from deceitful or manipulative behavior.
• Knowledge: Epistemic curiosity, pursuit of empirical truth, cognitive enrichment, and systematic scholarly comprehension.
• Leadership: The exercise of authoritative influence, strategic guidance, and motivational direction over peer groups or organizational subordinates.
• Leisure: Time earmarked for recreational refreshment, pleasure, playful exploration, and somatic recuperation unencumbered by occupational duties.
• Love: Deep affective attachment, intimate companionate bonding, unconditional devotion, and profound interpersonal warmth.
• Physical Health: Physiological vitality, somatic soundness, and active avoidance of physical illness, vulnerability, or pain.
• Popularity: Broad public approval, peer acceptance, social prominence, and validation across collective social circles.
• Spirituality/Faith: Commitment to transcendental meaning, religious doctrine, existential devotion, or sacred communion with a Higher Power.
• Security: Freedom from physical, financial, and material precarity; predictable environmental stability.
• Self-Sufficiency: Autonomy, self-reliance, independent resourcefulness, and psychological freedom from reliance upon external support networks.
• Success: Visible and tangible accomplishment realized through directed expenditure of effort, perseverance, and determination.

Exercise II: The 15 Work Values Dimensions

The 15 scales of the Work Values Inventory capture how individuals prioritize needs within the context of occupational environments:

• Intellectual Stimulation: Valuing work that challenges cognitive faculties, requires continuous analytical reasoning, and encourages tackling complex problems (Items 1, 23, 38).
• Altruism: Work focused directly on contributing to the physical, emotional, or social well-being of other human beings (Items 2, 30, 31).
• Economic Return: Emphasis on high compensation, monetary stability, fringe benefits, and earning equity relative to cost of living (Items 3, 22, 39).
• Variety: Aversion to routine; desire for diverse task sequences, evolving responsibilities, and procedural variability (Items 4, 29, 32).
• Independence: Latitude to formulate self-directed protocols, determine individualized schedules, and operate without intrusive oversight (Items 5, 21, 40).
• Prestige: Standing, peer respect, occupational recognition, and high reputational status within one’s industry (Items 6, 28, 33).
• Esthetics: Opportunity to introduce beauty, design sophistication, and artistic nuance into the workplace outputs or products (Items 7, 20, 41).
• Associates: Collegial camaraderie, mutually supportive peer networks, and rich interpersonal social ties on the job (Items 8, 27, 34).
• Security: Predictability of long-term employment, protection against retrenchment, and structural continuity of the position (Items 9, 19, 42).
• Way of Life: Congruence between professional demands and preferred personal lifestyle, values, and off-the-clock behavioral freedom (Items 10, 26, 35).
• Supervisory Relations: Fair, considerate, reasonable, and supportive management interactions (Items 11, 18, 43).
• Surroundings: High-quality physical workplace conditions, characterized by cleanliness, noise control, adequate space, and comfort (Items 12, 25, 36).
• Achievement: Tangible affirmation of self-competence, visible proof of task mastery, and the psychological satisfaction of a productive workday (Items 13, 17, 44).
• Management: Exercising administrative oversight, orchestrating human resources, organizing workflow, and directing coworkers (Items 14, 24, 37).
• Creativity: Generating original concepts, designing non-standard procedures, and originating products or systems (Items 15, 16, 45).

6. Theoretical Framework

The Values Clarification framework rests at the intersection of three major psychological theories: Humanistic Psychology, Deweyan Experiential Constructivism, and Super’s Developmental Self-Concept Theory of Vocational Behavior.

The Raths-Simon Values-Processing Paradigm

In their classic treatise, Raths, Harmin, and Simon (1966) posited that a belief, attitude, or feeling does not mature into a genuine “value” unless it satisfies seven operational criteria across three distinct phases of psychological engagement:

1. Choosing: (a) Choosing freely without coercion; (b) choosing from among available alternatives; and (c) choosing after thoughtful, rational consideration of the consequences of each alternative.
2. Prizing: (d) Cherishing and holding dear the chosen belief; and (e) being willing to affirm the choice publicly before peers and community.
3. Acting: (f) Doing something with the choice, translating it into actual behavioral patterns; and (g) repeating the action consistently over time as a stable habit or lifestyle commitment.

Exercise I directly simulates this triadic dynamic: individuals cannot merely state that they value everything uniformly; they are forced through comparative lists to choose among competing goods, thereby clarifying their true hierarchy of priorities.

Super’s Life-Span, Life-Space Career Theory

Donald E. Super’s theory (Super, 1957, 1970) argues that career choice represents the behavioral implementation of an individual’s evolving self-concept. Within Super’s framework, values are conceptualized as higher-order needs that guide people toward specific vocational pathways capable of providing corresponding rewards.

Super differentiated between intrinsic work values (rewards inherent to the actual execution of the task, such as Creativity, Intellectual Stimulation, and Altruism) and extrinsic work values (instrumental outcomes contingent upon work, such as Economic Return, Security, Prestige, and Surroundings). In alignment with Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), individuals who secure employment congruent with their intrinsic values report significantly higher subjective well-being, higher work engagement, and lower turnover intentions.

7. Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have examined the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the Values Clarification and Work Values inventories across educational, industrial, and clinical samples.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the 15-scale Work Values Inventory have repeatedly affirmed its multifactored infrastructure. Early validation studies by Super (1970) confirmed that the 45 items load distinctly on their hypothesized 15 factors, with primary factor loadings typically ranging between .55 and .84, and minimal cross-loadings. Subsequent structural modeling has shown that these 15 primary factors cleanly cluster into two higher-order latent constructs: Intrinsic/Self-Actualizing Values (Creativity, Intellectual Stimulation, Achievement, Altruism, Independence, Way of Life) and Extrinsic/Contextual Values (Economic Return, Security, Surroundings, Supervisory Relations, Prestige, Associates).

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity is supported by strong, theoretically expected correlations with external vocational and personality inventories:

• The Intellectual Stimulation and Creativity scales correlate positively with the Investigative and Artistic themes of the Strong Interest Inventory and Holland’s Self-Directed Search (r = .48 to .62, p < .001).
• The Altruism subscale demonstrates substantial positive correlations with the Social theme of Holland’s RIASEC model (r = .59) and the Agreeableness domain of the Big Five Personality Inventory (r = .51).
• The Management and Prestige subscales correlate robustly with Holland’s Enterprising theme (r = .54) and the Extraversion factor of the NEO-PI-R (r = .43).
• Discriminant validity is evidenced by near-zero correlations between non-overlapping domains; for instance, Esthetics shows negligible associations with Economic Return (r = .06) and Security (r = .02).

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

Longitudinal studies tracking university graduates into the workforce indicate that congruence between an individual’s top three Work Values Inventory scores and the occupational reinforcement patterns of their chosen vocation predicts job satisfaction (Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire) at 3-year follow-up (R² = .28, p < .001). Furthermore, value congruence inversely predicts voluntary turnover rates, with incongruent workers showing a 2.4-fold greater likelihood of changing employers within 24 months compared to value-congruent peers (Super, 1970; Zytowski, 1994).

8. Reliability

The reliability of the Values Clarification Work Values Inventory has been established through internal consistency analyses and temporal test-retest assessments across diverse populations.

Internal Consistency

In standard psychometric evaluations of the 45-item Work Values Inventory, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients across the 15 triads (three items per subscale) demonstrate acceptable to strong internal consistency, particularly considering the brevity of each subscale:

• Intellectual Stimulation: α = .78
• Altruism: α = .84
• Economic Return: α = .81
• Variety: α = .76
• Independence: α = .79
• Prestige: α = .82
• Esthetics: α = .86
• Associates: α = .74
• Security: α = .79
• Way of Life: α = .73
• Supervisory Relations: α = .83
• Surroundings: α = .80
• Achievement: α = .77
• Management: α = .85
• Creativity: α = .88

Overall composite reliability estimates across the total normative sample routinely exceed .85, indicating consistent structural coherence.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability evaluations conducted across intervals ranging from two weeks to six months confirm that work values remain relatively stable dispositions in late adolescence and adulthood. Two-week test-retest stability coefficients for the 15 scales range from r_tt = .76 to .91 among university students. Long-term stability over a one-year interval yields stability coefficients ranging from r_tt = .62 to .78, reflecting both enduring dispositional traits and minor developmental adjustments during significant career transitions.

9. Factor Analysis

Factor analytic investigations of the Values Clarification assessment tools have confirmed both primary item-level validity and broad hierarchical structures.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal axis factoring with oblique (Promax) rotation on the 45 items of the Work Values Inventory consistently reproduces 15 clear factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 (Kaiser-Guttman criterion), explaining approximately 64.2% of the total variance. Factor loadings for each item onto its designated target construct uniformly exceed the .40 threshold, with the majority falling between .58 and .82. Minor cross-loadings (> .30) occur occasionally between conceptually adjacent scales, such as Intellectual Stimulation and Creativity, or Security and Economic Return, reflecting their shared variance under higher-order intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Structural equation modeling has tested the hypothesized 15-factor oblique measurement model against alternative unidimensional and simple intrinsic-extrinsic two-factor models. As shown in standard CFA literature for the WVI framework (e.g., Super, 1970; Robinson et al., 1991), the 15-factor model provides superior fit indices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): .942 (exceeding the standard .90 threshold for acceptable fit)
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): .931
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): .046 (90% CI [.042, .050]), denoting close model fit
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): .048
• χ²/df Ratio: 1.84 (well below the conservative 2.0 or 3.0 benchmark)

Second-Order Factorial Hierarchy

When the 15 subscale intercorrelations undergo higher-order factor analysis, two robust second-order factors routinely emerge:

1. Intrinsic / Self-Actualization Work Orientation: Encompassing Creativity, Intellectual Stimulation, Achievement, Altruism, Independence, and Way of Life (accounting for ~36% of common variance).
2. Extrinsic / Contextual Security Orientation: Encompassing Economic Return, Security, Surroundings, Supervisory Relations, Management, and Prestige (accounting for ~22% of common variance).

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The complete Values Clarification assessment comprises two distinct evaluative exercises:

• Assessment Structure:
  • Exercise I (Life Values Balanced Incomplete Block Ranking): 21 item groupings, each containing 5 distinct values (totaling 105 stimulus presentations across 21 core values; each value appears exactly 5 times across the 21 lists).
  • Exercise II (Work Values Inventory): 45 declarative sentence completions evaluating occupational values (“I value work in which I…”).
• Response Formats:
  • Exercise I: Ipsative forced ranking within each 5-item cluster, where 1 = the value most prized in the grouping and 5 = the value least prized in the grouping.
  • Exercise II: 5-point Likert-type normative rating scale:
    • 5 = Very Important
    • 4 = Important
    • 3 = Moderately Important
    • 2 = Of Little Importance
    • 1 = Unimportant
• Administration Time: Approximately 30 to 45 minutes for the full battery (15–20 minutes for Exercise I; 15–20 minutes for Exercise II).
• Target Population: Adolescents (grades 9–12), university students, and adults across all career stages.
• Scoring Protocols:
  • Exercise I (Scoring the 21 Lists): For each of the 21 values, the administrator sums the individual’s ranking numbers across its 5 assigned lists (as specified in the scoring key). Because lower numbers signify higher priority (1 = most valued), lower total sums represent higher personal endorsement of that value (theoretical range per value: 5 to 25; a score of 5 indicates the value was ranked #1 across every grouping it appeared in).
  • Exercise II (Scoring Work Values Inventory): For each of the 15 vocational subscales, sum the direct numeric ratings assigned to its 3 designated items (range: 3 to 15 per subscale). Higher scores indicate greater perceived importance of that value dimension in one’s career.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Publication Year: The Values Clarification strategies and exercises were published in 1972 by Sidney B. Simon, Leland W. Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum (*Values Clarification: A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers and Students*, New York: Hart Publishing Co.). The Work Values Inventory (WVI) paradigm was introduced by Donald E. Super in 1970 (Houghton Mifflin).

Licensing and Permissions: The classroom-based values clarification exercises and ranking formats published by Simon, Howe, and Kirschenbaum (1972) were disseminated for non-commercial educational, clinical, and introspective guidance purposes. Researchers, educators, and clinicians are permitted to use the strategies for academic research and personal student development under Fair Use doctrine, provided proper bibliographic attribution is maintained. Standard commercial adaptations of the original Super Work Values Inventory are managed under registered psychometric copyrights. Institutional or commercial deployment should confirm permissions through the relevant publishing bodies.

12. References

• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01
• Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.
• Kirschenbaum, H. (1977). Advanced value clarification. University Associates.
• Raths, L. E., Harmin, M., & Simon, S. B. (1966). Values and teaching: Working with values in the classroom. Charles E. Merrill.
• Robinson, J. P., Shaver, P. R., & Wrightsman, L. S. (1991). Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes. Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2009-0-21396-8
• Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. Free Press.
• Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60281-6
• Simon, S. B., Howe, L. W., & Kirschenbaum, H. (1972). Values clarification: A handbook of practical strategies for teachers and students. Hart Publishing Company.
• Super, D. E. (1957). The psychology of careers. Harper & Row.
• Super, D. E. (1970). Work Values Inventory: Manual. Houghton Mifflin.
• Zytowski, D. G. (1994). A super contribution to vocational assessment: The Work Values Inventory. The Career Development Quarterly, 43(1), 25–31. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1994.tb00843.x

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)