History of Kuder

History of Kuder

Based largely upon the vision of Dr. Frederic Kuder, a pioneer in the career development industry, the history of Kuder includes many significant milestones which have created a foundation rich in experience, leadership and innovation – a foundation that continues to guide our work.

Today, the Kuder Assessments remain the widely accepted “standard” for students and adults to use when building their research-based educational and career plans.

Timeline

Explore the events and turning points that have shaped our company for the past 70+ years.

1900 – 1929

• 1903 June 23. Frederic G. Kuder is born to Frederic A. Kuder and Elizabeth Laiblin Kuder in Holly, Michigan.
• 1925 Kuder earns a B.A. in English from the University of Arizona.
• 1925 Kuder begins his career as an editorial assistant for pioneering psychologist J. McKeen Cattell’s Science Press in New York City.
• 1929 Kuder earns an M.A. in education from the University of Michigan. His advisor is George E. Meyers, one of the first presidents of the National Vocational Guidance Association.
• 1929 Kuder is employed in the personnel department of Proctor & Gamble Company. While there, he collaborates with Marion Richardson to develop a scale to measure the effectiveness of sales personnel with greater reliability.

1930 – 1939

• 1931 Kuder marries Dorothy Linn DeBeck.
• 1934 The Kuder General Interest Survey (KGIS) is first introduced.
• 1937 Kuder earns a Ph.D. from Ohio State University where he worked with Herbert Toops. Kuder’s dissertation research on the Ohio State Psychological Examination involves the construction of valid achievement test items.
• 1937 Dr. Kuder joins Marion Richardson, Dael Wolfle, Harold Gulliksen, and Dorothy Adkins as a university examiner at the University of Chicago. They prepare placement and comprehensive exams under the direction of L.L. Thurstone, carrying out Chancellor Robert Hutchins’s higher education reforms.
• 1937 Dr. Kuder collaborates with Marion Richardson to develop the Kuder Richardson formulas. They publish the KR-20 and -21 statistical formulas for estimating the reliability of scales. These formulas are still widely used today.
• 1937 The Kuder Preference Record–Personal, Form A is published. This was a personality inventory widely used in selecting sales personnel and managers, and in career guidance. There are two versions: AH (hand scored) and AM (machine scored).
• 1938 First Kuder Preference Record published by the University of Chicago bookstore (mimeo version).
• 1938 Kuder Preference Record–Vocational, Form B. This was the published version of the mimeo version, and rightly is the first of Dr. Kuder’s inventories. It has nine of the ten scales used presently. There are two Versions: BH and BM.

1940 – 1949

• 1940s Dr. Kuder holds several positions with the federal government during World War II.
• 1941 Dr. Kuder launches the journal Educational and Psychological Measurement which he edits for a number of years.
• 1943 Kuder Preference Record–Vocational, Form C is published. This version added the 10th scale, “Outdoors.” It was intended for high school and college students, and was widely used in advising the GI Bill students. Form CH (hand scored) had the pin-punch scoring for which Dr. Kuder became so well known. This version was widely licensed overseas to guidance personnel and third party sellers.
• 1946 Dr. Kuder is a founding member of Division 17, Counseling Psychology, of the American Psychological Association (APA). He serves as its second president.
• 1947 Dr. Kuder, with Erwin Taylor and Charles Mosier, co-founds the journal Personnel Psychology.
• 1948 Dr. Kuder joins the psychology department at Duke University.

1950 – 1969

• 1956 Kuder Preference Record–Occupational, Form D is published. This was the father of Form DD. Form D has an awkward scoring method. It was scored for occupational groups, like the Strong Interest Inventory at that time, without reporting vocational scale interests.
• 1960 Dr. Kuder receives the Ohio State University Centennial Achievement Award.
• 1963 Kuder General Interest Survey, Form E is published. This form uses simpler vocabulary and more items, so that it has satisfactory reliability for grades 6-8. It features the same ten vocational scales. Publisher CTB/McGraw-Hill develops a scoring program for a desktop computer that runs from either a keyboard administration or a scanner.
• 1964 Dr. Kuder retires from his position as a Professor of Psychology at Duke University.
• 1966 Kuder Occupational Interest Survey, Form DD is published. This is a revision of Form D, with a smoother scoring method. This is the first of Dr. Kuder’s tests that does not require hand scoring.
• 1968 Dr. Kuder receives the E.K. Strong Gold Medal.

1970 – 1989

• 1971 Dr. Donald Zytowski first meets Kuder at his "farm" in Raleigh-Durham, NC. Dr. Kuder asks him to do a study of the predictive validity of the Occupational Survey. Dr. Zytowski spends the next year tracing current addresses and soliciting information from approximately 1,800 people who had taken the inventory in high school and college 12 to 16 years earlier to learn that the actual later careers of 60% had been correctly forecast.
• 1974 Dr. Zytowski publishes the results of his research into the Occupational Survey as "The Predictive Validity of the Kuder Preference Record over a 25-year span" in Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance.
• 1977 Dr. Kuder publishes his only book, Activity Interests and Occupational Choice, which summarizes his work on methods of ascertaining the homogeneity of occupations.
• 1983 Vocational scales scores are added to the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey, Form DD. CTB/McGraw-Hill develops Form DD/PC, which runs on a desktop computer.
• 1985 August 24. Dr. Kuder receives the Leona E. Tyler Award at the annual meeting of Division 17 of the APA.

1990 – 1999

• 1995 Motivation Research Corporation begins publishing the Kuder Career Search Schedule. This version did not give vocational scale scores or career clusters. Job sketches from the pool of nearly 1,500 criterion people were published in the Kuder Book of People Who Like Their Work.
• 1997 Phil Harrington founds Career Assessment Centers. This company markets Profiles, an assessment product for businesses that allows employers to develop profiles of employees best suited to the company and position.
• 1998 Harrington contacts Iowa State University in an effort to find a faculty member with assessment expertise in order to fulfill a contract to evaluate the career education program in Iowa. He and Dr. Zytowski meet and begin working together on that project.
• 1998 Career Assessment Centers becomes National Career Assessment Services, Inc. (NCASI). The company develops the Iowa Career Learning Assessment® (ICLA), which is used by 15 states to evaluate career education programs. Results of the assessment create a major impact on educational funding for career and technical programs across the United States.
• 1999 Dr. Zytowski proposes that Harrington become the publisher of the person-match interest inventory first suggested by Dr. Kuder in the late 1970s and researched thereafter by Dr. Zytowski and other associates of Dr. Kuder. Harrington agrees.
• 1999 Dr. Zytowski and his wife Kay facilitate a meeting between Dr. Kuder and Harrington at Dr. Kuder's home on Sanibel Island, Florida.
• 1999 NCASI acquires the rights to the full line of Kuder assessments from CTB/McGraw-Hill. NCASI continues to support, sell, and score all of the assessments that CTB had marketed, including the Occupational Interest Survey–Form DD, the Kuder General Interest Survey–Form E, and the Kuder Preference Record–Vocational, Forms CP.
• 1999 NCASI develops the Kuder Career Search with Person Match, marketing first a paper assessment then a version that is PC-based. The PC version is loaded directly onto computers and used in lab situations. Assessment takers receive results immediately.
• 1999 November. Almost immediately following the release of the PC product, NCASI debuts the Internet-based Kuder Career Search with Person Match (KCS) assessment. The KCS features selected items from Form DD, in addition to new items created specifically for this version of KCS, to total 60 triads. The assessment uses the traditional vocational scales (although some are renamed) called the Kuder Career Clusters which are similar to the Holland types. Assessment results are matched to a database of nearly 2,000 individuals who represent the full range of occupations described in the Occupational Outlook Handbook to create Person Match Sketches for each assessment taker. At this time, individual codes are issued to each assessment taker.
• 1999 Dr. Kuder’s wife, Linn, passes away.

2000 – Present

• 2000 NCASI introduces the Kuder Electronic Career Portfolio. At this time, the portfolio is a separate product from the Kuder assessment. Assessment results can be pulled into the portfolio, but the two web sites work independently.
• 2000 April 2. Dr. Frederic (Fritz) Kuder passes away at his home on Sanibel Island, Florida.
• 2001 November. The Kuder site sees major upgrades and additions. The Kuder Skills Assessment (KSA) and Super’s Work Values Inventory-revised (SWV) are added. The online Kuder Career Portfolio is upgraded substantially. The assessments are integrated into the portfolio, and the entire site becomes more interactive as more cross links are added. Batch codes are now issued for schools and other sites to ease use and allow for a much more substantial Administrative Database Management System.
• 2002 Develop Your Future I and Develop Your Future II are authored by JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey and Nancy S. Perry and published by NCASI.
• 2003 NCASI introduces a new interface for the online Kuder Career Portfolio with additional portfolio upgrades.
• 2004 Take Hold of Your Future, 5th ed. by JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey published by NCASI.
• 2004 Major enhancements are added to the Kuder Career Portfolio, including a manageable “favorites” list, college search and comparison, and expanded career exploration data.
• 2004 August. The 16 Career Clusters are added to the Kuder assessments, so schools and organizations can specify whether they will use the six Kuder Career Clusters, the 16 Career Clusters, or state-specific career clusters.
• 2005 January. NCASI President Phil Harrington announces the launch of Visions Unlimited, Inc. (Visions), a sister company to NCASI. Visions (www.visions-unltd.com) specializes in fully customized state systems supported by collaborations between state agencies and non-profits, and made available to all citizens of the state.
• 2005 May. NCASI re-launches, Kuder User News, a newsletter for those that use, teach, and administer Kuder systems as well as those that are interested in career planning. The newsletter is published four times throughout the academic year.
• 2005 The interface for the Kuder Career Portfolio is upgraded to a fresh, new look and enhancements are added for system users such as the occupation comparison, scholarship search, and FAFSA application. A new logo with the tag line, “it’s how you get there!” is unveiled.
• 2005 Major enhancements are released for the Administrative Database Management System allowing for more robust individual and aggregate reporting through Quick and Advanced Reports. Portfolios for a particular site are now customizable with web links and education templates. Navigation and administration of individual portfolios is simplified.
• 2005 August. NCASI President, Phil Harrington and his wife, Janice, establish The Harrington Foundation www.theharringtonfoundation.org to make education, planning, and self-assessment possible by increasing awareness of career options and making available career development resources to those who might otherwise not have these opportunities. The Foundation awards nearly $10,000 annually in scholarships.
• 2006 January. Educational Training Associates, Inc. (ETA), sister company to NCASI, is founded to provide unparalleled training opportunities that meet the needs of diverse individuals. Specifically, ETA (www.etainc.com) begins offering online Career Development Facilitator Training to specially train individuals to work with students and adults in vocational and educational planning.
• 2006 Summer. NCASI continues to make annual enhancements and improvements to the Kuder Career Planning System. During the summer, many new features are added to the Kuder system including the Curriculum Manager and Job Interview Planning tips.
• 2006 August. Develop Your Future Online is launched. The core features and content of DYF Online remains the same as the hard-copy version, but now in a well-organized and easy-to-use Adobe® PDF format. The curriculum is available aligned to both the 16 Career Clusters and the Kuder Career Clusters.
• 2007 April. NCASI announces the merger of NCASI with two of its sister companies; Educational Training Associates, Inc. (ETA) and Visions Unlimited, Inc. (Visions). These three companies merged into one new organization, simply called Kuder, Inc. The change reflects the core mission NCASI, ETA, and Visions were founded on, and more accurately describes the main focus: career assessment for all ages.
•  Along with the name change, the company moved to a new, expanded building to house its ever-growing staff of dedicated professionals.
• 2007 August. Kuder, Inc. unveils a new logo.