The assessment of interests through the use of interest inventories is big business in the field of testing today. The assessment of interests originally developed as an outgrowth of efforts in education and in industry to supplement special and general abilities information about individuals. Interest inventories used today differ from early checklists and ratings in that they use statistical methods to summarize responses to pools of items representing various activities and occupations. Definition of interests typically reflect five components: personality, motivation or drive, expression of self-concept or identification, heritability, and environmental influences. The purpose of interest assessment, current interest assessment inventories, and computers and interest assessment are discussed. The most powerful uses of interest assessment continue to be in the context of data such as values, reinforcers, abilities, personality, and biographical information, that capture the life experiences of an individual. As both education and industry have discovered, the integration of a variety of information, including the assessment of interests, can contribute effectively to improving individual and institutional decision-making. (JBJ)