Two Psychometric Tests - Essay Example

?Running Head: Critique on Two Psychometric Tests Critique on Two Psychometric Tests [Institute’s TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 MBTI 3 Introduction and Description 3 Development and Design 4 Availability and Access 5 Strengths and Weaknesses 5 Supporting Research 6 Information 7 16 PF 8 Introduction, Development and Design 8 Availability and Access 10 Target Group 11 Uses 11 Strengths and Weaknesses 12 Information 13 Supporting Research 13 References 14 MBTI Introduction and Description MBTI, as regarded by many professionals and experts, is the best and most trusted personality assessment tool used all over the world. Almost 70 percent of the Fortune 500 companies use MBTI tests for their employee assessment. CPP, the institute from where the test can be officially obtained, claims that it administers over 2 million assessments annually, which is the largest number for any psychometric assessment. The entire framework of MBTI rests on four major dichotomies (Berens, 2001, pp. 85-86). Attitude, the first dichotomy, divides people into Extroverts (E) or Introverts (I). The former prefer more interaction, action and spending time with people, whereas, the latter feel more comfortable while spending time alone, believe in being thought oriented, little but substantial interaction and depth in their limited social interactions (Bayne, 1997, pp. 89-90). The function of “perceiving” is the second dichotomy that divides into Sensing (S) or Intuition (N). Sensing refers to the approach where people look for concrete evidence, facts and empirical evidence. They prefer data coming from, or verifiable through, the five senses and favour measureable information. On the other hand, intuitive people make more effort to look for hidden meanings, patterns and contexts in the data presented to them. They would show more flexibility and trust of abstract and theoretical concepts, insights, subconscious feelings and others (Myers and Myers, 1980, pp. 55-56). The “judging” function is the third dichotomy, where a person would be classified as a Thinker (T) or Feeler (F). The judging function is concerned with how an individual is making decisions. Thinkers are more likely to make rational, logical and calculated decisions. They avoid developing an attachment with the variables and entities in order to achieve objectivity and make no comprise on the rules and regulations. Feelers, on the other hand, have the tendency to understand the situation from the inside, evaluate other perspectives, create relationships with the variables and then make a decision in order to create a harmony and balance (John, et al., 2008, p. 160). Lastly, the dichotomy of “lifestyle” classifies people into having a preference for Judging (J) function for Perceiving (P) function. The former people are more likely to live an organised and settled life. On the other hand, perceivers prefer keeping their decisions and options open (Myers and Myers, 1980, pp. 55-56). Development and Design The father of analytical psychology, Carl Jung, deserves the bulk of the credit for the creation of MBTI. Many of the concepts put forward by MBTI were a part of the Jung’s book Psychological Types published in the year 1921. However, the arrangement and approach was a bit different because Jung believed that everyone is either a “perceiver” or a “judger”. The rest of the other dimensions would flow from this division (John, et al., 2008, p. 160). MBTI, in its original form, was developed by a team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, the mother daughter team, divides people into sixteen different personality types. According to MBTI, there are four dichotomies, each one having two extremes and any people could be at or near any extreme thus allowing sixteen different personality types, based on different combinations (Bayne, 2004, pp. 99-100). MBTI first appeared in the year 1942 and since then it has been revised several times with different authors and most of these revisions have played an important role in improving the overall outlook of the test. The most recent forms of MBTI are the “Form M” and “Form Q”. However, in total, there are five firms available of MBTI which was Form M, Form Q, Form G and Form M and Form G’s self-scorable versions. Availability and Access MBTI, like many other personality tests is available on the internet as well but the formal way of getting hold of the test is through CPP. The test with over a 100 questions is available in 21 different languages such as French German, Spanish, Mandarin and others (Bayne, 2004, pp. 99-100). Strengths and Weaknesses As MBTI has been gaining more and more popularity over these years, it has also attracted many critics. The criticism levied on MBTI can be divided into two types, first, criticism on the test or assessment its self, its assumptions, approaches and techniques and the other being the criticism of the implications and effects by the use of the test. The fact is that MBTI has no research basis or empirical grounding; instead, it was based on the assumptions, theoretical evidences and intuitions of Myers and Briggs, which were obviously unscientific. Furthermore, many sceptical critics of MBTI believe that it is no better than horoscopes because of the fact that it uses positive words for each quality of trait. In addition, the vague traits and their sugar coatedness create room in the minds of people to accept them, whereas, in reality, it can be explained with Forer Effect. In the year 1948, “Bertman Forer, a well known psychologist and professor gave all of his students a unique personality analysis based on professor insights and observation” (Bayne, 1997, pp. 89-90). The students had to rate the accuracy of that analysis on a scale of 0-5 which 0 being inaccurate and 5 being exactly accurate. The personality analyses received an average rating on 4.26; however, the fact was that each student received the same analysis with general and board statements full of positive and encouraging talking about both sides of the story. MBTI does exactly the same and creates an illusion of specific personality thus making it highly unreliable (Bayne, 1997, pp. 89-90). Although, there is evidence to suggest that MBTI has validity but the fact is that over 80 percent of the evidence comes from “Center for the Application of Psychological Type and Journal of Psychological Type” (Watkins and Campbell, 2000, pp. 86-87), the former provides training in the usage and handling of MBTI and the latter has many loyal adherents of MBTI. Therefore, this raises a serious doubt over the credibility of MBTI (Watkins and Campbell, 2000, pp. 86-87). Supporting Research Over the years, MBTI has been the focus of many researches and studies. The debate regarding the empirical credibility of MBTI is still going but lately there have been theoretical and abstract researchers that are trying to tell that even from a purely statistical perspective, the major assumption of the MBTI test is flawed. Myers and Briggs believe that every person is either an introvert or an extrovert; however the truth is that many people are in between. Studies reveal that introversion and extroversion in people can be best represented by a bell curve distribution with extreme extroverts and introverts appearing on the two sides of the tails and a big chunk of people lying somewhere in between. What MBTI does is that takes a sharp knife and cuts that bell curve neatly from the very middle and divide into extroverts and introverts. However, Jung admitted that there is no perfect extrovert or introvert in the world, in fact, if there would be one then the system would consider him or her as a lunatic. In spite of this, MBTI indirectly stresses on the presence of only extroverts and introverts and nothing in between. Furthermore, considering the degree of globalization and information bombarded towards individuals every day, they are in a constant interaction with the outer world which has the potential to mould their thought processes and even the overall personality (Kjeldal, 2006, pp. 68-69). Furthermore, the mood of a person also plays an important role in his or her perception of possible behaviours and attitudes (Quenk, 2009, p. 254). Information Reliability or in other words, Test-Retest reliability is the cornerstone of any psychometric assessment. Reliability refers to the degree to which a test consistently measures what it is supposed to measure. A highly reliable test would be the one that comes up with same results if taken again anytime in the near future. Important here to understand is the fact that a test cannot be 100 percent or even 95 percent reliable or larger samples because personality is a slippery entity and many people misunderstand questions or constantly change their views about themselves (Aiken, 2009, pp. 352-354). Therefore, there is an acceptable degree of reliability for these tests and MBTI achieves above average ratings in that regard. It was in the year 1998 when Form M first emerged on the scene is the standard form of identifying the personality type of individual by classifying them into the four letter type. A study with a sample of just over 3000 people, which also represented the national sample as well, indicated that the test has an internal reliability of over 0.90 or greater. Form Q is an advanced step, which not only identifies the four-letter type but also produces a detailed explanation by reporting the 20 possible facets as well. A nationally representative sample of just over 1350 people concluded that the 20 facets have an internal reliability of 0.77 (Bayne, 2005, pp. 485-487). Validity, on the other hand, refers to the degree to which a test is measuring what it is supposed to measure and the extent to which what the test is measuring has some sort of a meaning. Over the past many years, there have been hundreds of studies, experiments and researches in order to explore the degree of validity of MBTI. From behavioural observations to interviews, from focus groups to brain scans, from factor analysis to correlation measures and others, different studies have employed different methods (Rust and Golombok, 1999, pp. 69-71). For example, studies found out that introverts are more likely to conduct their tasks with a heads down approach in their own rooms and offices, while extroverts were more likely to take their tasks in outside environments. A 2006 research found that people who were identified by MBTI as Intuitives were more likely to end up in or would prefer artistic occupations as compared to their flip side, sensors. A stud y conducted in 2000 found that on scales of dominance, thinkers are more likely to score higher than feelers, while feelers outside thinkers on scales of nurturance (Watkins and Campbell, 2000, pp. 86-87). 16 PF Introduction, Development and Design Raymond Cattell, a British psychologist, also cited as the 16th most influential psychologists in the 20th century, was the creator of the 16 personality types, something for which he received widespread recognition. When Cattell entered the field of psychology in the 1920s, he became extremely skeptical of the methods employed by the psychologists and the data that was available on the topic of personality in that era. Cattell’s concern was that the literature available on personality was largely intuitive, subjective, based on personal opinions, emotional arguments, and biased assumptions (Cooper, 1998, pp. 252-253; Kline, 2000, pp. 234-236). It lacks a clear and concrete research basis thus unverifiable and invalid. Being a positivist and empiricist, Cattell strongly believed in the use of universal, replicable, and empirical tools that should have their grounding in scientific and technical methods. Furthermore, Cattell was an adherent quantitative research and believed that everything, which exists, would have its existence in some amount and thus it would qualify to be measureable. Therefore, everything is either a “one” or a “zero” (Edenborough, 2000, pp. 403-404; Thomson, 1998, pp. 48-49). Rather than taking a univariate approach or even a bivariate approach for studying personality, Cattell proposed and preached the use of a multivariate approach. His views were that personality and its behavioural dimensions is an extremely complicated and complex entity and trying to study one variable in isolation is more likely to lead to unreliable results since many factors at the same time are playing their part. Furthermore, it allowed them to study the entire picture and understand the relationships between various variables (Rhodes, 2009, pp. 55-56; Berens et al., 2004, pp. 230-231). Furthermore, Cattell was also very much impressed with the work of Charles Spearman, another British Psychologist and Statistician, especially for his work in factor analysis. Factor analysis is a statistical tool for exploring the degree of correlation between two variables (Cooper, 1998, pp. 252-253). When Spearman was using the factor analysis to understand different dimensions of human abilities, Cattell decided to use the same for understanding behavioural and cognitive aspects of human personality. This was the help of factor analysis that Cattell came up with his 16 Personality Factors. Cattell wanted an objective way of understanding human personality and its traits and 16PF was just what Cattell was looking for (Schultz and Schultz, 2005, pp. 143-145). The 16 primary factors of personality as identified by Cattell and mentioned in the questionnaire are “warmth, reasoning, emotional ability, dominance, liveliness, rule consciousness, social boldness, sensitivity, vigilance, abstractedness, privateness, apprehension, openness to change, self-reliance, perfectionism and tension” (Engler, 2008, pp. 74-75). The currently used version of 16PF questionnaire was developed in the year 1993 being the fifth edition of the questionnaire, although, the first version appeared on the scene in the year 1949. The goal of the last update was to ensure more simplicity in wordings of questions and answer format, improving the validity and reliability data (Kline, 2000, pp. 234-236). Furthermore, the test also had to come up with a standardization sample of 10000 people in US census based on the changing demographics. In addition, the fifth edition of the test now contains 185 multiple-choice questions and is at the reading level fifth grade students (Carducci, 2009, p. 36; Berens et al., 2004, pp. 230-231). Availability and Access Although, the test is available on the internet, it can easily be accessed in a formal manner through Institute of Personality and Ability Testing (IPAT).The pen and pencil version of the paper may allow the test takers a maximum of 50 minutes for the evaluation and the computer version test may be completed in around 30 minutes or less. Both individuals and groups can take the test and compare their results to absolute and relative scales. The test is such that there is no need for administrators or invigilators for the tests and individuals can take the tests by themselves (Rhodes, 2009, pp. 55-56; Kjeldal, 2006, pp. 68-69). Furthermore, with the help of the keys given with the tests, individuals can score themselves. The other option in this regard could be mail or fax the test answers to the publisher, Institute of Personality and Ability Testing (IPAT). There are dozens of softwares and programs that can calculate the results and interpret them as well. Over the years, “the 16PF test has been translated into more than 35 different languages and dialects; furthermore, these translations also take into notice the cultural differences” (Edenborough, 2000, pp. 403-404; Kline, 2000, pp. 234-236). Target Group While developing the assessment, Cattell did not have a specific target group in mind. The underlying idea was the help people understand each other. Although, he had a fair idea that what he was doing would become an important tool for recruitment and selection, career counselling, therapy and others (Engler, 2008, pp. 74-75; Passmore, 2008, pp. 185-187). The test was meant for general and diverse populations, although, Cattell did mention that children taking the tests would not lead to reliable results. In the latter years, Cattell and his team also came up with another version of the questionnaire for adolescents, specifically for the ages of 12-18 and named it as 16PF Adolescent Personality Questionnaire. This questionnaire has a wide usage amongst counsellors and therapists who are helping youth to go through the tough times in their lives and make important career decisions based on their personality (Carducci, 2009, p. 36; Berens et al., 2004, pp. 230-231). Although, this test was widely used for personnel selection and recruitment purposes but in the year 1999, Cattell came up with a shorter version of the test, which has lesser items in every scale. This test takes, on an average, fifteen minutes and has only 107 items in contrast with 183 items in the normal 16PF questionnaire. Furthermore, the focus is on 12 traits, which are more relevant in job settings (Schultz and Schultz, 2005, pp. 143-145). Uses As mentioned earlier the uses of 16PF are widespread. Many counsellors, psychologists and therapists use them to understand and asses their patients. Schools, colleges and universities use this test for admissions and business organisations for recruitment and assess that whether or not particular candidates or students are right for the studies or professions. Furthermore, over the years, 16PF has played an important role in creating other frameworks as well. Over the years, some researchers have often used the tests on convicted felons and prisoners to understand the dynamics of their behaviour (Borsboom, 2005, pp. 10-12). Strengths and Weaknesses When many other tests also individuals to make self-assessment based on their own perceptions and image by presenting statements “I am even tempered”, “I am confident” and “I am a likeable person”, 16 PF relies on asking questions based on social and actual situations and the most likely behaviour of the test taker in those situations. Therefore, it decreases the probability of biasness and corruption of answers and personality assessment by decreasing the degree to which the person’s own self-image could affect the answers (Borsboom, 2005, pp. 10-12; Kjeldal, 2006, pp. 68-69). On the other hand, the fact is that there are serious questions over the reliability of the model because Cattell himself was never able to duplicate the findings of his research, let alone other researchers (Borsboom, 2005, pp. 10-12). Furthermore, there are studies that clearly show that falsification of results becomes an easy task with the 16PF questionnaire. Furthermore, many critics believe that the entire test is lexical and statistical in nature and one cannot determine the personality of another person with the help of catchy words and some mathematical tests. Personality is a more complicated and complex function than that (Edenborough, 2005, pp. 23-24). Information One of the prime reasons behind the popularity and wide usage of 16PF questionnaire is the fact that, over and over again, various studies and researchers have found out that it has moderate to excellent validity and reliability. A study conducted in the year 1994 with a sample of 10,621 individuals found that internal consistency reliability is on an average 0.76 on primary scales and range between 0.68-0.87 for all the 16 scales in the test (Thomson, 1998, pp. 48-49). Furthermore, this study also measured the reliability of the tests over a 15-day period and a month period as well. For the former, it found out that the reliability scores ranged between 0.68-0.87 and for the latter, the reliability scores were in the range of 0.59-0.79 (Berens, 2001, pp. 85-86). Supporting Research A recent research conducted by Danish researchers with a sample of over 550 students over a 4 year period reported that 16PF questionnaire is extremely effective in terms of identifying the personality traits of people over their course of life. These students filled out the 16PF questionnaire after training and supervision of the researchers and over the four year period, the researchers used many different personality tests and assessment procedures to understand their personality and the results were very much in line with the assessment provided by 16PF. Nevertheless, over the four year period, the results of other personality assessment tools such as Big Five and MBTI appeared to be less reliable as compared to 16PF which showed greater reliability (Rhodes, 2009, pp. 259). 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