Journal of Vocational Behavior 84 (2014) 99108

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Journal of Vocational Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb

Making use of professional development: Employee interests and motivational goal orientations,
Valerie A. Johnson , Terry A. Beehr
Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Vocational interests and goal orientation (GO) are examined for their potential influences on employees' decisions to engage in professional development and to apply the knowledge and skills gained from development activities in their jobs. Specifically, professional development, in the form of continuing professional education (CE), was examined for a variety of practicing healthcare professionals (N = 183), including physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals in the Midwest United States. Aspects of vocational interest theory (interests and congruence) and GO theory predicted CE outcomes (voluntary participation in CE beyond professional requirements and the application of CE learning at work). Further, employee GO mediated between interests and the application of CE learning at work, providing evidence of a work-specific motivational process linking interests with performance-related behavioral outcomes. 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 4 October 2013 Available online 18 December 2013 Keywords: Vocational interests Goal orientation Professional development Motivation

1. Introduction Recently, vocational interest theory has resurfaced in the I/O field, reigniting considerations of its relevance to the workplace with arguments that interests may have been unjustly dismissed from organizational research (Alusheff, 2012, August 15). Specifically, recent examinations have focused on both interests and congruence (i.e., extent that individuals' interests match their work environments) in predicting multiple work-related outcomes, such as training and job performance, turnover, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive work behaviors (Nye, Su, Rounds, & Drasgow, 2012; Van Iddekinge, Putka, & Campbell, 2011; Van Iddekinge, Roth, Putka, & Lanivich, 2011). These recent studies resulted in several conclusions regarding the importance of interests and congruence, two of which the present study sought to examine more closely. First, interests and congruence were found to be particularly relevant to job-related knowledge and skills as well as to training performance, suggesting that both of these factors may be especially important to job performance that is dependent on knowledge and skills. Therefore, interests and congruence could prove essential to professions where knowledge/skill development is crucial (Van Iddekinge, Putka et al., 2011; Van Iddekinge, Roth et al., 2011). The second conclusion of note was that congruence is more important to job performance than are interests alone, and interests may actually be more distally related to performance (Nye et al., 2012; Van Iddekinge, Roth et al., 2011). Therefore, the present study contributes to the research literature on vocational interests in the workplace by testing these empirically-derived suggestions and recommendations. Specifically, we examined the potential effects of employees' interests

Some of these data were presented at the 2013 meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in Houston. The study is based on the rst author's master's thesis, which was supervised by the second author. We thank Norbert Semmer for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859, USA. E-mail address: johnva15@gmail.com (V.A. Johnson). 0001-8791/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.12.003

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and congruence on their attempts to develop their professional abilities, as well as their performance-related workplace application of acquired knowledge and skills. Furthermore, we studied employees in professions where their knowledge and skills are particularly important to performance: healthcare. Specialized knowledge and skills are critical in these professions, where the consequences of error can be great. This is why governments and professional associations deem it necessary that professionals' licensure/certification to practice be contingent on the initial gain and continued development of specialized skills. Finally, in addition to testing these suggestions, we also posit several original hypotheses that examine the potential for interests (apart from congruence) to predict work behavior and outcomes based on theory. Thus, we propose that interests and congruence may predict the extent that healthcare professionals participate in professional development (in the form of continuing education; CE) and apply what they learn at work, benefitting their patients and organizations. Further, as interests may be distally related to job performance outcomes, a work-specific motivational process (i.e., goal orientation; GO) may intervene between interests and on-the-job use of knowledge and skills gained from CE. 1.1. Vocational interest theory Vocational interest theory (also called RIASEC theory; Holland, 1997) posits that individual interests and work environments can be categorized along six dimensions: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional. Each is associated with specific interests and abilities (e.g., realistic interests prefer working with practical, structured tasks). Each type is used to describe work environments by their tasks and employees by their interests. 1.1.1. Interests and knowledge, skills, and abilities Interests influence behavior by motivating the choices that individuals make regarding the amount of involvement and effort they put into certain tasks and activities (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Holland, 1997; Mount, Barrick, Scullen, & Rounds, 2005; Sullivan & Hansen, 2004). The focus of vocational interest theory has largely been on the congruence of employees' interests with their work environments. Recently, however, research examining the relationship between vocational interests and work-related knowledge and abilities, performance, and turnover intentions of U.S. soldiers suggested that interests (apart from congruence) may also be useful in predicting performance that is strongly knowledge- or skill-based (Van Iddekinge, Putka et al., 2011). Past research supports interests relating to aptitudes and skills. Realistic interests are related to numerical, mechanical, nonverbal, and spatial reasoning, perceptual speed, form perception, and manual dexterity; investigative interests are related to abilities in critical thinking, perceptual speed, form perception, and spatial, verbal, numerical, and mechanical reasoning; artistic interests are related to abilities in music, verbal reasoning, and motor coordination; social interests are related to interpersonal and motor coordination abilities; enterprising interests are related to leadership abilities; and conventional interests are related to numerical reasoning abilities (Ackerman, Kanfer, & Goff, 1995; Lowman & Ng, 2010; Lowman, Williams, & Leeman, 1985; Randahl, 1991). Further evidence of the links between interests and employees' knowledge and skills can also be found in congruence research. For instance, links between congruence and general job productivity have been inconsistent or weak (Fritzsche, Powell, & Hoffman, 1999; Heesacker, Elliott, & Howe, 1988), but more promising results were found when productivity included a stronger knowledge component. For instance, congruence and productivity were positively related for a group of population scientists, in terms of more active participation in professional conferences as well as more journal authorships and editorial consultantships (Richards, 1993). Knowledge is a major component of this occupation to the point that one's productivity tends to be measured by the development and publication of it. Thus, we examined learning experiences for specialized professional training, positing that professional workers' specific interests should be related to their voluntary attempts to acquire relevant skills through CE training. 1.1.2. Interests and skill development As suggested by vocational interest theory (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Holland, 1997), one reason that interests may be linked to the knowledge and ability aspects of performance may be the purposeful engagement in activities that reflect specific interests (activities that further develop employees' knowledge and skills). For instance, when employees' interests matched their work environments (i.e., were congruent), they perceived themselves as having more opportunities to utilize their own competencies, reported higher levels of involvement and intrinsic motivation at work, and engaged in professional skill development (De Fruyt, 2002; Dik & Hansen, 2011; Gottfredson & Holland, 1990). Vocational interest theory proposes that the congruence between employees' interests and their jobs acts as a motivating factor for gaining work knowledge and competency (e.g., Gottfredson & Holland, 1990; Holland, 1997). Further, proposals made by recent research (e.g.,Van Iddekinge, Roth et al., 2011) also emphasize congruence to be more relevant to performance that reflects work-related learning. Therefore, we propose that the more congruent employees' interests are with their jobs, the more likely they will be to voluntarily engage in CE beyond what is professionally required and will also be more motivated to apply CE learning at work, as their work presents them with opportunities to apply their preferred competencies. H1. Congruence will be positively related to participation in additional CE and to the application of CE learning at work. Despite the emphasis on congruence in predicting work-related outcomes (such as competency development) in vocational interest theory (Holland, 1997) and research, interests (apart from congruence) may also relate to work behavior and outcomes. Interests

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encompass dispositional tendencies, other than knowledge and abilities, that may be of use in further understanding how interests affect individuals' work attitudes and behaviors. On this note, we focused on the motivational drives of three interests that should be related to employees' work behavior. That is, as interests influence behavior by motivating individuals to engage in activities reflective of their interests, employees' involvement in professional development may be directly motivated by their interests. Thus, employees' interests may explain their voluntary participation in CE. The first, investigative interests, are conceptualized to contain a strong knowledge-seeking component as well as high educational aspirations (Holland, 1997) and have also been empirically related to various kinds of knowledge (e.g., Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997). Therefore, due to the theoretical and empirical associations of investigative interests with knowledge and learning, individuals with these interests may be more likely to engage in CE because of an intrinsic interest in developing their knowledge. H2. Investigative interests will be positively related to participation in additional CE. Conversely, realistic interests may negatively predict employees' engagement in CE. Theoretically, realistic interests contain the lowest educational aspirations and achievements of all interests, instead preferring activities that have immediate practical effects (Holland, 1997). These interests are also linked to technical types of knowledge (Ackerman et al., 1995). Thus, realistic employees may be interested in developing certain types of job knowledge, but their general disinterest in education makes it less likely that they would do so through formal education. Therefore, although realistic employees may attend CE to the extent that it is professionally required, they will be less likely to engage in additional CE. H3. Realistic interests will be negatively related to participation in additional CE. Lastly, we propose a third vocational interest that may also predict engagement in CE. Enterprising interests are theorized to include avoidance of intellectual pursuits/activities (Holland, 1996), and their educational aspirations and achievements are among the lowest of all the interests (second only to realistic; Holland, 1997). However, although enterprising employees are disinclined toward educational pursuits, they are professionally ambitious and considered to have the highest vocational aspirations and achievements of all interests, often seeking positions of authority and leadership (Holland, 1996, 1997). These conceptualizations are supported, as enterprising interests are empirically linked to leadership ability in both work- (Van Iddekinge, Putka et al., 2011) and nonwork-related (Lowman et al., 1985) research. Therefore, enterprising employees may be more likely to engage in CE. Although they may not have a strong intrinsic interest in learning, like those with investigative interests, these employees have high professional ambition. Specifically, enterprising employees may perceive CE as a way to make themselves more attractive candidates for potential pay raises, promotions, or better jobs by improving their professional credentials beyond what is expected. They might be cultivating a rsum and skills that would enable them to obtain promotions and better jobs. H4. Enterprising interests will be positively related to participation in additional CE. In addition to positing links between interests and congruence with employees' engagement in CE, we take our examination a step further. As interests are suggested to be more distally related to job performance (Van Iddekinge, Roth et al., 2011), we propose that they may be indirectly related to the performance-related behavior of applying job knowledge and skills at work through the mediating effects of employees' work GOs. 1.2. GO theory GO is a motivational concept considered to be the manner that individuals pursue goals in achievement contexts (Dweck, 1986; Nicholls, 1984). GO has been theorized as consisting of two, three, and four dimensions. In the current study, we focus on the three-dimension GO construct. A mastery GO includes the primary intention of enhancing one's own abilities, knowledge, and skills. The other two dimensions are performance-oriented and include performance-approach (focuses on demonstrating competence and gaining favorable judgments from others) and performance-avoid GO (focuses on the avoidance of failure and negative judgments; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996; VandeWalle, 1997). 1.2.1. GO and work-related learning Applied to organizational research, GO has been more commonly studied in relation to work-related learning. For instance, GO has been related to the adoption of learning strategies and time spent practicing tasks (Orvis, Horn, & Belanich, 2009). Much of this research has found mastery GO to be related to positive professional learning outcomes such as training performance as well as applying what was learned in training (e.g., Chiaburu & Marinova, 2005; Dierdorff, Surface, & Brown, 2010; Tziner, Fisher, Senior, & Weisberg, 2007). Some research has also found performance-approach GO to be positively related to training performance and knowledge outcomes, yet unrelated to the application of training outcomes (Chiaburu & Marinova, 2005; Dierdorff et al., 2010). Lastly, performance-avoid GO has been negatively related to training performance, knowledge outcomes, and application (Dierdorff et al., 2010; Orvis et al., 2009; Tziner et al., 2007). Because research examining performance-approach GO in relation to work-oriented learning has weak and mixed findings (e.g., Chiaburu & Marinova, 2005; Dierdorff et al., 2010), the present study focused on mastery and performance-avoid GOs.

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CE is a special form of work-related learning for people in professional occupations, and we propose that GO may also play a role in whether and how employees choose to engage in CE learning, and the extent that they subsequently apply gained skills in their work. Mastery GO, learning new skills for the sake of self-improvement, is likely to be related to participation in CE beyond requirements, as well as to applying what is learned in CE at work. H5. Mastery GO will be positively related to participation in additional CE and to the application of CE learning at work. Conversely, employees who have a performance-avoid GO toward their work are preoccupied with the avoidance of failure. Further, the limited research for this GO in work contexts suggests that it is negatively related to several training processes and outcomes, such as a willingness to practice and the application of training to work (Orvis et al., 2009; Tziner et al., 2007). Therefore, we posit that employees with a performance-avoid GO are less likely to engage in CE beyond what is required, and they will also exert less effort in applying CE learning at work. They will avoid CE and trying out new skills that could expose them to failure. H6. Performance-avoid GO will be negatively related to participation in additional CE and to the application of CE learning at work.

1.3. Interests, GO, and the application of CE In addition to encouraging employees to participate in certain activities, interests may also lead employees to engage in situation-specific motivational processes that facilitate the utilization and further development of their job-related interests and competencies. Work-oriented mastery GO shows promise as such a motivational process. More specifically, investigative employees may voluntarily participate in additional CE because continual learning is reflective of their interests, but they may be more likely to actually apply CE learning at work due to a more indirect process. Therefore, investigative employees' interest in acquiring knowledge may lead them to adopt a learning-oriented (mastery) approach that facilitates the further development of their knowledge by motivating them to put it to practice. H7. Mastery GO will mediate the relationship between investigative interests and the application of CE learning at work. Recent research focusing on the role of interests (apart from congruence) in relation to job knowledge, skills, and performance outcomes has also shown instances of vocational interests having negative relationships with job responses, which may be an important special case (Van Iddekinge, Putka et al., 2011). We suggest that the adoption of a performance-avoid GO may be the reason for the negative relation between realistic interests and engagement in CE. If realistic interests are negatively related to engagement in CE, it may be because realistic interests lead to a negative type of motivationperformance-avoid GO. That is, realistic employees may avoid engaging in additional CE (due to their disinterest in educational activities), and they may adopt motivational strategies to avoid developmental activities of putting to use what is learned in educational settings (such as CE). Therefore, realistic employees are unlikely to gain from CE because cognitive learning does not reflect their own interests. H8. Performance-avoid GO will mediate the relationship between realistic interests and the application of CE learning at work. As noted earlier, we posited that both investigative and enterprising interests would predict increased engagement in CE, but for different theoretical reasons. Similarly, we believe that the relationship between enterprising interests and the application of CE learning at work will also be mediated by mastery GO, although for a different reason from why mastery GO mediates between investigative interests and CE application. Like investigative employees, enterprising employees also want to further develop their professional skills; it therefore benefits them to learn as much about their profession as they can, for utilitarian reasons (gaining career advancement). Further, they see themselves as deserving career advancement, and adopting a mastery GO is consistent with that self-image; they are or will be the kind of person who has those skills and should be promoted, consistent with their ambitious drive. Enterprising individuals will be better able to apply new learning if they become fully engaged in the learning to master the information, becoming the kind of person who deserves recognition and advancement. H9. Mastery GO will mediate the relationship between enterprising interests and the application of CE at work.

2. Method 2.1. Participants and procedure Participants (N = 183) consisted of a professionally diverse group of healthcare professionals, including physicians (n = 45) in 16 different specialties (e.g., neurologists, pediatricians, surgeons), 11 types of nurses (n = 60; e.g., nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners, occupational health nurses), and 11 kinds of allied health professionals (n = 78; e.g., physician assistants, speech pathologists, surgical technologists) in the U.S. Midwest. Participants were mostly women (66.7%) and White (88.0%). The largest age group was between 50 and 59 years old (38.2%), and the majority held a graduate-level degree or certificate (71.0%).

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Participants were recruited by emailing requests to state-wide professional medical associations (e.g., associations of nurse anesthetists, neurological societies) located in all 12 states that comprise the U.S. Midwest region (e.g., Michigan, Wisconsin); these emails explained the purpose of the study and provided a link to an online survey to be sent to their members. Overall, 217 healthcare associations were contacted, and we received responses from at least one healthcare professional from 54 of them. 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Vocational interests Interests were assessed using the Self-Directed Search (SDS; Holland, Powell, & Fritzsche, 1994), which contains 228 items asking what participants enjoy doing, their competencies (activities that participants can do well), occupations that interest them, and their self-estimated abilities. These items are divided into the six RIASEC interest types. There was little theoretical reason for artistic, social, and conventional interests to predict CE engagement, so no hypotheses were made for them, but all interests were used in the congruence index. Validity evidence of the SDS is provided by research showing that interest scores are related to knowledge and skills reflective of the respective interests, with correlations ranging from .03 to .43 (Lowman et al., 1985). Distribution of participants' SDS scores indicated that social, investigative, and enterprising interests were the most frequently held dominant interests (Table 1), supporting theoretical claims of the relevance of certain interests comprising specific professional fields (e.g., individuals with social interests are common in care-taking professions; Holland, 1997). 2.2.2. Congruence Congruence is the degree that individuals' interests match their work environment (in terms of their occupation). Work environments were assessed with the Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes (DHOC; Gottfredson & Holland, 1996), which uses six work environment categories that match the six interests in the SDS. Individuals' interest and occupation codes were calculated using Brown and Gore's (1994) C-Index. Participants' three highest scoring interests on the SDS were compared with the three-letter interest code that the DHOC assigns to an occupation. Congruence is calculated using the following equation: C 3xi 2xi xi : Validity evidence of this congruence index has been shown in its ability to predict job performance that is particularly skill-based, with a correlation between congruence and performance quality of .22 (Fritzsche et al., 1999). 2.2.3. GO Participants' work GO was measured with VandeWalle's (1997) work domain goal orientation scale. Domain-specific GO may behave like a state, as it is situation-specific (Payne, Youngcourt, & Beaubien, 2007) and can be affected by both situational and individual factors (Harackiewicz, Durik, Barron, Linnenbrink-Garcia, & Tauer, 2008; VandeWalle, Cron, & Slocum, 2001). Participants were instructed to respond to GO items in reference to their jobs. We included mastery GO (5 items; e.g., I am willing to select a challenging work assignment that I can learn a lot from) and performance-avoid GO (4 items; e.g., I'm concerned about taking on a task at work if my performance would reveal that I had low ability). Items were scored on scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Reliability estimates were .83 for mastery GO and .80 for performance-avoid GO. VandeWalle's (1997) mastery and performance-avoid GO scales have shown significant correlations with performance-related behaviors such as the application of work-related learning (.18, .18, respectively, Dierdorff et al., 2010). 2.2.4. Voluntary participation in CE To assess participation in CE beyond the amount required to maintain licensure/certification to practice, participants were oriented toward the concept of participating in voluntary or extra learning CE by first asking general questions about the CE that was required by their profession. Then two open-ended questions asked participants to report the number of additional CE courses and hours taken per year, on average, beyond those professional requirements: If you attend additional learning engagements beyond what is required On average, about how many additional learning engagements do you attend per year? and On average, about how many continuing education hours do the additional learning engagements you attend amount to each year? Participants responded by typing a number into a text box for both participation items (i.e., additional number of CE courses and hours). Any number (including zero) that was reported was considered to be the amount of additional CE taken.
Table 1 Distribution of the number of participants with dominant SDS scores in each interest type. R Primary Secondary Tertiary Note. N = 174. 23 15 21 I 31 36 39 A 8 17 14 S 81 42 32 E 13 43 36 C 18 21 32

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These two items were positively correlated, r = .45, and the participation in CE measure was formed by standardizing and summing them. 2.2.5. Application of CE at work Participants answered three questions specifically developed for this study that examined the degree that they applied what they learned in CE to their work, from 1 (never) to 5 (a great deal): How frequently do you apply the knowledge you have gained from continuing education in your work activities, How frequently do you attempt to change existing work procedures/ practices based on what you learned in continuing education, and How frequently do you attempt to improve your work performance by applying what you have learned in continuing education? It had acceptable reliability ( = .81). 3. Results Means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliabilities are listed in Table 2. Because all of the interests were used in calculations of congruence, data for all vocational interests are included in the table, not just the interests for which the specific hypotheses were developed. Due to significant relations of the demographic variables and interests with CE outcomes, gender, age, educational degree level, and income were used as control variables while testing the hypotheses. 3.1. Main effects In testing the hypotheses, correlations are reported first, and for significant correlations, multiple regressions holding the control variables constant were then calculated (Table 3). 3.1.1. Congruence and CE Congruence was not related to participation in additional CE (r = .00, p N .05), but it was positively related to the workplace application of CE learning (r = .17, p b .05; Table 1). When holding demographics constant, congruence also predicted the application of CE, R2 = .03, F1, 159 = 4.92, p b .05, partially supporting Hypothesis 1. 3.1.2. Interests and CE Investigative interests were positively related to participation in additional CE (r = .42, p b .01). Multiple regression also found that investigative interests predicted voluntary CE participation over and above the effects of gender, age, degree, and income (R2 = .10, F1, 139 = 17.51, p b .01), fully supporting Hypothesis 2. However, realistic interests were not significantly related to participation in additional CE (r = .12, p N .05; Hypothesis 3). Lastly, enterprising interests were related to participation in voluntary CE (r = .23, p b .01), and the relationship maintained significance when controlling demographic variables (R2 = .03, F1, 139 = 4.73, p b .05), supporting Hypothesis 4.
Table 2 Means, standard deviations, intercorrelations, and reliabilities. Demographics M Demographics 1. Gender 2. Age 3. Degree 4. Income Vocational interests 5. Realistic 6. Investigative 7. Artistic 8. Social 9. Enterprising 10. Conventional 11. Congruence Goal orientation 12. MGO 13. AGO 14. Additional CE 15. Apply CE .71 7.37 3.64 5.07 19.99 25.53 18.16 31.59 24.06 22.23 10.52 4.92 2.86 .12 3.74 SD .46 2.35 .70 1.97 11.55 11.42 10.46 7.74 8.55 7.39 3.70 .65 .97 1.53 .66 1 .14 .17 .54 .45 .45 .06 .24 .14 .09 .02 .16 .15 .25 .06 2 3 4 Vocational interests 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 GO 12 13 CE 14 15

.06 .21 .15 .03 .25 .03 .06 .18 .15 .03 .00 .04 .06

.37 .12 .13 .12 .16 .14 .08 .02 .10 .01 .10 .18

.18 .39 .24 .07 .16 .12 .05 .15 .00 .34 .02 (.87) .46 .32 .03 .24 .14 .10 .17 .16 .12 .15

(.85) .40 .12 .31 .16 .01 .31 .16 .42 .01

(.85) .29 .30 .05 .12 .15 .02 .14 .05

(.68) .42 .22 .11 .18 .07 .03 .08

(.80) .51 .06 .29 .15 .23 .03

(.68) .26 .16 .15 .11 .10

.07 .11 .00 .17 (.83) .44 .27 .23

(.80) .16 .19

.12

(.81)

Note. N values ranged from 165 to 183. Values greater than .14 have a p value b .05. Values greater than .19 have a p value b .01. Reliabilities are in parentheses on the diagonal. MGO = mastery goal orientation. AGO = performance-avoid goal orientation. For gender, males were coded 0 and females were coded 1.

V.A. Johnson, T.A. Beehr / Journal of Vocational Behavior 84 (2014) 99108 Table 3 Hierarchical regression of CE participation and application on interests, congruence, GO, and control variables. CE participation Step 1 (controls) Gender Age Degree Income Step 2 (interests and congruence) Investigative Interest Income Enterprising interest Income Step 2 (GO) Mastery GO Income Performanceavoid GO Income R2 .12 R2 .12 .08 .03 .04 .31 .22 .15 .10 .03 .36 .24 .03 .30 .22 .28 .17 .34 Gender Age Degree Income Congruence Degree .06 .03 CE application R2 .03 R2 .03

105

.07 .00 .18 .06 .17 .18

.17 .15

.05 .03

Mastery GO Degree PerformanceAvoid GO Degree

.09 .08

.06 .05

.25 .17 .22 .18

Note. N = 150. For gender, males were coded 0 and females were coded 1. To save space, in step 2 of analyses, demographic variables are shown only if significant effects were present. p b .05. p b .01.

3.1.3. GO and CE Consistent with Hypothesis 5, mastery GO was positively related to participation in additional CE (r = .27, p b .01) and to applying CE at work (r = .23, p b .01). When holding demographics constant, mastery GO predicted both additional CE (R2 = .05, F1, 139 = 7.72, p b .01) and CE application (R2 = .06, F1, 159 = 10.19, p b .01). Consistent with Hypothesis 6, performance-avoid GO was negatively related to voluntary participation in CE (r = .16, p b .05) as well as to applying what was learned in CE at work (r = .19, p b .05). Further, performance-avoid GO predicted voluntary participation in (R2 = .03, F1, 139 = 4.35, p b .05) and application of (R2 = .05, F1, 159 = 7.81, p b .01) CE beyond the effects of gender, age, degree, and income. 3.2. Mediating effects of GO Bootstrapping is recommended when examining indirect effects, due to its ability to estimate indirect effects without making assumptions about sampling distributions (Hayes, 2009; Preacher & Hayes, 2004). The variables examined for indirect effects were standardized in order to get a standardized mean effect size (Fig. 1). Supporting Hypothesis 7, an indirect effect of .08 (CI95: .02, .16) was found for investigative interests on CE application at work through mastery GO. The indirect effect of realistic interests on CE application through performance-avoid GO was not significant (.03, CI95: .002, .08). Therefore, Hypothesis 8 was not supported. However, mastery GO did significantly mediate between enterprising interests and CE application, with an indirect effect of .08 (CI95: .03, .15), supporting Hypothesis 9. 4. Discussion The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness of vocational interest and GO theories to determine how healthcare professionals engage in and apply CE (a form of professional development). Employees' interests, congruence, and work GOs were differentially related to their engagement in CE and to the application of CE learning at work.

Investigative Interests

.31**

Mastery GO

.26**

Application of CE

Enterprising Interests

.29**

Mastery GO

.26**

Application of CE

Note. N = 175. Mediation was tested using standardized betas. **p < .01.
Fig. 1. Mediating effect of mastery GO for investigative and enterprising interests with CE application.

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4.1. Vocational interest theory and CE Interests and congruence showed differing potential for predicting employees' engagement in and application of CE. Interestingly, congruence did not relate to employees' voluntary participation in additional CE, but it did show promise in predicting employees' performance-related behavior of applying CE learning at work. At first glance, this finding appeared to only partially support previous studies. However, looking more closely at the few congruence studies that examined employees' skill development behaviors revealed that this may not be the case. Specifically, the evidence regarding congruence and professional development tends to center on these types of behaviors at work. That is, one study linked congruence with skill development (Dik & Hansen, 2011). However, the type of development examined included on-the-job behaviors, in which employees apply knowledge and skills in order to improve performance. Further, another study found congruence to be related to employees' utilization of competencies (e.g., using skills acquired in job training; Gottfredson & Holland, 1990). Our findings contribute to the sparse research on congruence and professional development by further specifying how congruence may relate to employees' engagement in these activities. Specifically, congruence may be more important to employees' on-the-job competency development, such as using skills learned in training (or, in this case, CE). Yet, congruence may be less useful in predicting how employees will engage in voluntary skill development activities, such as the current case of congruence being unrelated to voluntary participation in CE. However, considering the dearth of interest research that examines these work outcomes, this suggestion should be further examined. In addition to congruence, there were also findings that highlighted the potential importance of interests, apart from congruence. Specifically, we emphasized that the theorized motivational drives of certain interests may be of use in predicting professional development outcomes. For the current study, we did this by proposing that investigative, realistic, and enterprising interests differently motivate employees' voluntary engagement in CE, which was partially supported. As hypothesized, investigative and enterprising interests predicted greater voluntary participation in CE. Notably, however, this relationship was stronger for investigative interests than it was for enterprising interests. Vocational interest theory posits that people with investigative interests have high achievement aspirations in educational settings compared to people with other interests (Holland, 1997), and the same may be true in work settings. Investigative interests are also linked with cognitive abilities (e.g., critical thinking, various reasoning skills; Ackerman et al., 1995; Randahl, 1991), which is also consistent with our finding of engagement in extra CE learning. Employees with strong investigative interests might seek new work-related knowledge and skills, regardless of their profession, just because they are more interested in learning. Lastly, we hypothesized that realistic employees would be less likely to voluntarily participate in more CE. This would occur because realistic interests have the lowest motivational drive toward educational pursuits (Holland, 1997) but was unsupported by our findings. One reason for this finding, however, may be the fact that not all CE courses are conducted in typical formal educational settings (e.g., in a classroom taught by an instructor). That is, these courses take on many forms, such as workshops. Because CE is not restricted in its approach to education, this could reduce others' perceptions of it as education and may instead have elements of practical hands-on learning that do not conflict with realistic interests. Such CE may be less likely to repel those who are generally uninterested in typical educational activities. 4.2. GO Theory and CE GO is a learning-oriented motivational process that may play a role in how employees apply their CE learning. These behaviors are especially likely to be affected by individual motivation, because they are voluntary behaviors. To our knowledge, there has been no previous research examining GO and professionals' engagement in and application of CE; however, the present study's results were consistent with the proposal that certain GOs could indicate motivation, either toward or away from work-related learning and its application at work. Mastery GO is related to how employees engage in and apply CE. Those with higher levels of a mastery GO toward their work are more likely to take initiative in developing their professional skills, which should also translate to benefiting the organizations that they work for, because they are also more likely to apply CE learning in their organizations. Similar to some past findings indicating negative relationships between performance-avoid GO and engagement in and use of work-related learning (e.g., Dierdorff et al., 2010), we found negative relationships of performance-avoid GO with individuals' engagement in CE and their application of CE learning in their jobs. As those with a performance-avoid GO are preoccupied with an aversion to failure and negative judgments from others, these negative relations may mean that they will not take initiative to utilize what they have learned in CE, perhaps due to a fear of failing in these attempts and appearing incompetent to their colleagues and patients. Further, because of this orientation, they may be less interested in professional development opportunities, and they would therefore be less likely to attend CE voluntarily. 4.3. Indirect effects of interests on CE application As it has been suggested that vocational interests may be more distally related to job performance outcomes (Van Iddekinge, Roth et al., 2011), we examined the effect that GO may have as a mediator in the relationships of interests and the performance-related behavior of applying CE learning at work. Mastery GO mediated the relationships of both investigative and

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enterprising interests with CE application. This suggests that interests may lead to the adoption of certain learning strategies that facilitate employees' professional development by motivating them to apply newly acquired knowledge and skills at work. The findings regarding the effects of both investigative and enterprising interests being mediated by a mastery GO indicates the potential for employees with different interests to adopt a learning-oriented approach to their work in order to achieve potentially different ends. For instance, both investigative and enterprising types may be driven to further develop their professional knowledge and skills. However, although we expected that employees with investigative interests were doing so due to an interest in learning, enterprising employees were likely engaging in professional development in order to advance materially in their jobs. Yet, both types sought to further develop their professional knowledge and skills, and therefore, both adopted a mastery GO in doing so. Further examination of this interpretation is warranted. Similar to our hypothesis of realistic interests' less CE participation, our belief that employees with these interests would also be less likely to apply CE due to their adoption of a performance-avoid GO was not supported. However, realistic interests negatively related to employees' application of CE learning at work, but the relationship was not due to performance-avoid GO. In fact, this relationship was weak and not significant when controlling demographic variables, indicating that realistic interests' effect on CE application may be minimal. 5. Limitations and future directions One limitation of the present study is that the data were collected from self-reports. One of the key problems with this method is that there could be inflated relationships among the variables due to common methods (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012). Table 1 shows that this was not a serious problem, however, because many of the relationships were weak and nonsignificant. This problem was probably reduced because of the use of validated scales (e.g., interest measure), nonself-report data obtained from the DHOC, and the fact that some of the variables were objective (e.g., number of courses and hours spent in CE). A second problem is that the ability to infer causation is weak because of the cross-sectional design. However, interests are trait-like and not likely to be affected by more transient variables such as CE outcomes or work GO. This reduces the chances of reverse causation. The current study's findings indicate a need for further research regarding the ways that both vocational interest and GO theories can be useful in further understanding how employees choose to engage in and utilize work-related learning opportunities. Work-related learning should translate into better job performance and career opportunities for employees, and future research could determine if the interestGO combination predicts those outcomes. 6. Conclusion This study contributes support to the relevance of vocational interests in the workplace by providing evidence of interests' relationships with employees' engagement in and application of work-related learning. Interestjob congruence, a pillar of vocational interest theory, was not necessary in predicting all learning outcomes; and where congruence falls short, interests show promise. Specifically, investigative interests were important to employees' voluntary participation in CE, suggesting that interests may influence behavior by motivating employees to pursue opportunities to further develop professional knowledge and skills. This study also provided further evidence of GO's relevance in the workplace. In the present study, the focus of GO was taken outside of a specific class or training course to the broader, work-related learning of CE, which contains educational content different from more traditional academic settings (e.g., new technology, updated procedures, new treatments to be used on the job). GO can predict not only the extent that people will voluntarily participate in CE but also the extent that they will apply the newly acquired knowledge and skills to their work. Lastly, our findings suggest that interests may lead to the adoption of situation-specific motivational processes that may be important in facilitating the possible effects of interests on employees' use of CE learning. Specifically, a mediating effect was found, in that investigative and enterprising interests positively related to a mastery GO, which, in turn, predicted the application of CE at work. This suggests that interests may serve to predict not only individuals' choices of and involvement in certain activities, but also the adoption of learning strategies that can influence performance-related work behavior. References
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