Personal Testing in Counseling Psychometrics - Research Paper Example

Personal Testing in Counseling Psychometrics Psychometric testing involves a range if implementations and skills. Testing can be utilized for applications such as individual mentoring, or setting individuals up with life coaches to see them through issues related to the work environment, and the various ways of handling them. There is no fail or pass in psychometric testing. Psychometric testing involves a set of multiple questions that relate to the type of personality, the interviewees weaknesses and strengths, goals for future, and how they handle aspects of home and work life. The results should be relatively accurate if the person to whom the test is administered is truthful. Psychometric testing utilizes psychological profiles, in the assessment of intellectual and personality levels. Different researchers use different approaches to testing, for example, psychodynamic approach, psychometric approach, the humanist approach, and the approach of social learning. This paper aims to focus on personality testing as a method of psychometric testing. The paper will describe personality testing and its purpose. It will also discuss the test’s validity and reliability, norm groups and populations, for whom the test should not be used, personally evaluate the test and its uses, uses and abuses of the test, and how the test is used with culturally diverse individuals. Introduction Personality tests are questionnaires designed to reveal various aspects of an individual’s psychological make-up or character. Initially, personality tests were intended to make the selection of personnel easier, especially in the disciplined forces. A variety of tests have been developed since then, for example, the MMPI, MBTI, and tests based on personality’s five factor model. In the present day, personality tests are utilized for relationship and individual counselling, employee selection, career planning, and employee development. A number of different personality tests are in existence (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 20). The self-report inventory is the most common and involves administration of numerous items or questions to the subjects, whose response can be objectively scored using their responses to gauge the degree to which the items measure up to their behaviour. Items on the questionnaires are statements, which allow respondents to indicate agreement levels. The test measures the subject’s behavioural and personality through a self report personality questionnaire (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 20). A self-report asks the subject, via covert questions, about aspects of their personality, which have relevance to their workplace. The response to a question about how an individual behaves during a party could indicate the person’s ability to work in a team. After collection, the information is collated into a personality profile. As opposed to an aptitude test, a personality test is not timed and has no wrong or right answers. Responses to the questions enable the interviewer, for example, an employer, to predict the subject’s response to a wide range of work-related activities. With these predictions, employers can establish the suitability of an individual to a given role. Validity of the personality test estimates the success of the test in measuring the aspects it purports to measure. Two types of validity should be considered; construct validity and criterion-related validity. Construct validity measures the personality test’s relation to other scales that measure similar concepts. Criterion-related validity measures whether the test makes predictions on specific outcomes with relation to job performance or interpersonal relations. The National Academy of Sciences made a review of data from twenty personality test studies, and concluded that the introversion-extroversion scale is the only one with adequate construct validity (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 20). The test’s reliability relates to its degree of consistency in measuring what it purports to measure (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 20). The length of the test affects its reliability, with tests that take longer tending to have more reliability. The performance test’s reliability can be measured by reliability coefficients. Short personality tests should range from 0.70 to 0.80. Personal Evaluation of the Test Utilization of personality tests in the Human Resources field is a fast growing trend. In this case, a personality test can be perceived as a structured interview delivered as a self-report questionnaire. Before the 1990s, these personality tests were reserved for clinical applications (Paul, 2009). In recent years, development of personality tests for applications in business has increased the scope of these tests, as they act as a crucial tool for success prediction for applicants in a wide variety of jobs. In the Human Resource field, personality testing proves to be an essential part of selecting employees. A good example of the tests application is the employment of a janitor. This position requires that the person follows a standard routine consistently. Successful janitors are not too ambitious and tend to be introverted. They usually help when summoned to do so, and enjoy tasks, which others would consider routine. These are the characteristics that personality tests specifically measure. Furthermore, typical job interviews poorly measure these aspects, as do intelligence tests. Additionally, proper configuration of personality tests helps to identify individuals who will be satisfied with the job’s key aspects. This ensures that there is a significant reduction of turnover of staff. If a large part of the task, for example, requires the daily performance of highly routine tasks, then the interviewer needs to hire individuals who, on top of performing the task, can do so with satisfaction over a long time. The personality test provides that sort of information. Thus, organizations with an interest in hiring employees of high quality, and significantly reducing staff turnover, can do so to a great degree of success by employing a personality test that is well developed during hiring. Current Research Using Personality Tests With a focus on practice and research, this section reviews and evaluates trends contributing to the increasing utilization of personality tests in the selection of personnel. The Myers-Briggs Indicator has become the most widely used and trusted psychometric instruments for personality assessment in non-psychiatric populations. Based upon empirical research from its inception, it has spawned a research laboratory, CAPT, which is a self-supporting and independent research journal. MBTI was initially created to facilitate research interests (Paul, 2009). Briggs Myers devoted herself to coming up with an instrument valuable for a vast number of people. World War 2 aroused in her favour to help in promoting harmony and understanding among people to avoid conflict. A study carried out by Paul A. M. (2009) aimed at gaining specific information on how True ColorsTM relates to MBTI. True Colors is a model that helps one understand themselves and others, based on personality temperament. Four central personality types, represented by the colours gold, blue, green, and orange are differentiated by the True Colors style. The independent variables in the study were the personality types of orange, blue, green, and gold. The dependent variables from other instruments included: 1) Feeling, thinking, perceiving, and judging from the MBTI, 2) the general occupational themes of realistic, conventional, investigative, and social from the SII, and 3) the orientation scales of producing, organizing, analyzing, helping, and adventuring CISS dimensions. The survey involved 56 graduate students, thirty eight female and eighteen male, enrolled in a moderate-sized Carnegie Research I university (Paul, 2009). The respondents completed all 4 assessments over the fall of 2008 and 2009 spring semesters. The respondents’ ages ranged from twenty four to sixty two, with forty years as the mean age. All respondents participated voluntarily. The research constituted of various instruments. The True Colors character cards activity is a self-report activity (Paul, 2009). For this study’s purpose, a forced-choice determination of an individual’s personality type where the subject was asked to rank the 4 cards 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Each of the cards represents the four personality types. True Colors word cluster instrumentTM is a self-scorable, self-report where individuals rank five adjective sets, for example, organized, conservative, or loyal, for each personality types according to the ones most like the individual with a score of four. Those least like the individual were given a score of one. The possible score range for a personality type was zero to twenty. The study also used the MBTI Form-G self scorable tool, the SII FormT3 17, and the CISS number 26460. Results of correlations came out in support of convergent validity of True ColorsTM character cards activity and world cluster instrument with the MBTI (Janda, 2011). However, there was little support for convergent validity with the Campbell Interest Survey and Skill and the Strong Interest Inventory. The two True Colors instrument dimensions did not find any gender differences. However, there existed differences of significance between gender groups found for other assessments. Males, specifically, averaged scores much higher than females on the MBTI thinking dimension. Females, however, averaged higher than men on the dimension of SII enterprising, with the reverse true for men, who averaged higher than women on the realistic dimension. Women averaged higher on the CISS than men on the dimension of creativity, with men averaging higher on the dimension of adventure. The positive and significant correlations between the MBTI personality test (Didato, 2008): True Colors, SII, and CISS were as follows: MBTI feeling, True Colors Blue, and SII social dimensions MBTI thinking, True Colors green, and CISS analyzing dimensions MBTI judging, True Colors gold, CISS organizing, and SII conventional MBTI perceiving, True Colors orange and SII artistic The research yielded some outstanding results. These were: 1. True Colors had a relation of much significance with the Myers-Briggs Test Indicator, providing information pertaining to how True Colors related specifically to the Myers-Briggs Test Indicator. However, the relationships uncovered do not follow logical assumptions all the time, such as those a professional knowledgeable in both MBTI and True Colors might make. Therefore, the findings underscore how serious caution is in extrapolation of personality types across various personality assessments. 2. Personality types in True Colors change with time, with the respondent’s experience or environment affecting results at the testing time. 3. Determination of personality types in true Colors does not suffer from the influence of gender. The study could be applied in a number of ways. The study also provided practical application information for utilization of the personality system of typing, giving importance to the fact that the two tools have an individual appeal to particular types of personality. The two tools also elicit a participant’s responses and confidence differently (Daniels & Price, 2010). There exists a greater appeal for character cards activity from orange and blue personalities, eliciting artistic and creative responses. For example, the professional utilizing True Colors system of typing with an artistic or creative group will elicit more responses by using the character cards activity. The activity generated a higher interest in the survey than if the professional used the word cluster instrument. Gold and green personalities found the word cluster instrument more appealing, with the tool eliciting more analytical and logical responses from the subjects (Daniels & Price, 2010). For example, for the surveyor or professional choosing between the 2 assessment determinants, using the word cluster instrument during the assessment of, say a group of engineers, would get a higher level of interest from the participants in the exercise. It also led to the generation of more responses, as compared to the character card activities. Results True Colors types of personalities MBTI Dichotomous functions SII general occupation themes CISS orientation scales Blue: focus more on relationships with harmony, are communicative, warm, authentic, and compassionate. Feeling: value based making of decisions while considering the action’s consequences for others. Social: prefer to work with groups and individuals, are nurturing, caring, and helpful. They also solve problems via interactions with the other individuals on the team. Helping: Aid others via teaching counselling, and healing. Tyhey value compassion, nurturing, interpersonal harmony, solving human problems, and being of service to their colleagues. Green. Rational, principled, philosophical, complex, theoretical, inventive, seeking, and curious. Thinking. They base their decisions on logic by making enquiries, fairness considerations, and have their mind on cause and effect. Investigative. They prefer scientific or academic data and ideas, prefer working alone, gather and analyze fresh theories and data, and value curiosity. Analyzing. They use mathematics for data analysis, and carry out scientific experiments. Gold. Individuals are organized, orderly, loyal, traditional, responsible, practical, and procedural. Judging. They prefer planning ahead to avoid changes / stress in the latter stages. Conventional. Prefer accuracy, detail, and stability. Organizing. They prefer to organize work for their mates, as well as monitoring and managing financial performance. Orange. Opportunistic, spontaneous, daring, realistic, and active. Perceiving. They highly value openness, spontaneity, and are adaptable to change. Realistic. Prefer to work outdoors with tools, with an added preference for concrete problems and high risk activities. Producing. Prefer to produce results utilizing hands-on skill in construction, gardening, farming, and mechanical crafts. (Books, 2011). Uses and Abuses of the Personality Test Personality tests can be used for psychological research, with emphasis on testing various personality theories (Beckert, 2010). Research reveals that subjects who are not involved in any form of relationship with the individual under interview can better judge the individuals’ abilities and relationships. These researchers study a large batch of self-evaluative investigations, which could indicate the individual’s flawed views concerning their own personality, and their relationships socially. This sometimes leads to decisions that can negatively impact the lives of others. Thirty nine percent of surveyed companies utilize personality testing during the process of hiring. More individuals are utilizing personality testing for business partner evaluation, as well as their spouses and dates (Beckert, 2010). Salespeople utilize personality testing to better the understanding of their customer’s needs, as well as gain an edge competitively in deal conclusion. College students utilize personality testing for roommate evaluation, while lawyers utilize it to analyze criminal behaviour, profile litigation, examine witnesses, and select juries. One significant problem pertaining to personality testing is the distortion of respondent responses (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2009). Tests that are emotive become unreliable as the subjects pick answers that they suspect could be the best fit for an ideal individual. In the context of employment, this is a problem, especially as lying has an added incentive in allowing the individual to present their character in a manner that favours them. Some participants also mistakenly believe that there exists more validity in results because they are happy with their results. They believe that implications of positive traits, which the test tells them that they possess, reflect their personality. This distorts the tests results. When using personality tests with culturally diverse individuals, it is essential to use a cross-cultural adaptability inventory (Kaplan & Saccuzzo, 2009). This self scoring rating scale with six points is an instrument for training, which is designed to give feedback about individuals on their potential effectiveness cross-culturally. The instrument possesses greater effectiveness when used as part of the training program. The instrument can also be utilized as a tool for team building in work groups that are culturally diverse, as well as a tool for counselling individuals who are in the process of adjusting cross-culturally. The inventory includes fifty items, with distribution across four sub-scales. These include personal autonomy, perceptual acuity, openness/ flexibility, and emotional resilience. References Beckert D. E. ( 2010). Personality Tests: An Investigation of the Use and Value of Their Application to the Study of Human Behavior . Boston: Boston University. Books L. ( 2011). Personality Tests: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Purity Test. Memphis: General Books LLC. Daniels D. N, Price V. A. ( 2010). The essential enneagram : the definitive personality test and self-discovery guide. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Didato S. V. ( 2008). The big book of personality tests. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal. Janda L. ( 2011). The Psychologist's Book of Personality Tests: 24 Revealing Tests to Identify and Overcome Your Personal Barriers to a Better Life. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Kaplan R. M, Saccuzzo D. P. (2009). Psychological testing : principles, applications, and issues. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Paul A. M. ( 2009). The Cult of Personality Testing: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, And Misunderstand Ourselves. New York: Simon and Schuster,. Read More