Career choice narratives: engineering personality types?

Psychological models have portrayed career choice narratives in terms of personality dimensions. In contrast to this approach, the research reported on in this study employs a conversation analytic perspective in order to examine the deployment of career choice narratives in terms of intelligibility and accountability. Engineering students on a degree programme were interviewed about their career choice. The responses given are examined for the display of membership categories in terms of personality characteristics commonly associated with engineering. Rather than revealing a psychological construct of a personality, the responses are considered as themselves being engineered to address the display of rational agency and deliberation in arriving at a career choice.