Perfman HR Blog
Assessment Methods
Clinical Testing & It’s Relation to Performance
Some of the relatively early developments in clinical testing included instruments aimed at assessing aspects of mental impairment such as might arise from brain damage. One such was the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test (1938). Errors made in copying abstract designs formed the basis of assessment. In addition to modern equivalents of such instruments, clinical psychologists today make use of psychometric tests aimed at specific conditions.
A Short History Of Motivation Tests
There are a number of tests of motivation. For example, the Motivational Styles Questionnaire (MSQ) (Tarleton, 1997) looks at what an individual wants out of a work situation and how he or she will seek to deal with everyday tasks. The latter include the balance between an operational task focus and seeing the task in terms of personal success. In fact, many test publishers include motivational tests in their listings, and the BPS guide to personality tests (BPS, 2001) has a section on this too. There are, however, a number of potential problems with motivation and, like many other things, it is something about which experts disagree. This is rather vividly illustrated in Reber’s (1995) Dictionary of Psychology where it is described as an ‘extremely important but definitionally elusive term’. This is followed by one of the longest entries in the dictionary, but including a useful reference to it as a general or a specific energizer.
Projective Techniques Used For Personality Assessments
Not all personality assessment involves the use of self-report methods. Projective techniques are based on the idea that individuals’ perception of the world about them is coloured by their own personality. That is, people project their personality upon the various stimuli that impinge upon them, making sense of the stimuli in at least a partially subjective way. At the level of common discourse, we have optimists characterized as those who see their glass as half-full and pessimists as those who see it as halfempty. The glass and the present amount of its contents are the same in each case, but the personality – optimistic or pessimistic – is projected upon it.
The Role of Questionnaires in Personality Measurements
The measurement of personality has, as indicated in the last chapter, been a matter of active interest for many years. It has long been recognized that personality is of great importance in people’s success in work, no less than in the approach they take to other aspects of their life. Personality measurement is very clearly part of the whole [...]
The Role of Graphology in Psychometric Testing
Of the procedures that should not be regarded as constituting psychometric testing, but which are often wrongly associated with it, graphology is the most common. It is defined as the analysis of the handwriting of an individual in order to infer personality traits and behavioural tendencies. The means of interpretation used never seems to have been subjected to rigorous statistical treatment, certainly not in a way to accord with the design standards applied to the general body of psychometrics. Eysenck (1957) and Mackenzie Davey over 30 years later (1989), after reviewing research on handwriting analysis, cast doubt on the scientific nature of the approach. Graphologists believe that idiosyncratic features of a person’s handwriting serve as an expression of his or her personality.
The Implication Of Psychometric Tests & Non-Tests
Tests vary in form and it is the systematic approach rather than the form itself that is key. Certain standards in the construction of a test are also necessary for it to be truly regarded as a proper psychometric instrument. Such standards are promulgated and supported by bodies such as the British Psychological Society (BPS) or American Psychological Association (APA) and essentially cover the research requirements necessary to set up a psychometric test. These include the development of an appropriate and systematic means of interpretation. Without such standardized methods, tests are of little practical use. The BPS also publishes independent reviews of tests, which among other things provide comment on the tests in the light of the standards. It also sets standards for qualification in test use.
Different Forms of Psychometric Tests
In essence, information is given by a psychometric test through providing those taking the test with the opportunity to respond to a series of items or events that relate directly or indirectly to a particular area of behaviour. The area can be a skill such as reasoning with numbers or an interpersonal behaviour such as a tendency to give support to other people. Most common and familiar are those psychometric instruments that pose questions with alternative answers. The questions may involve propositions or statements as in the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire, known as the 16PF (Cattell, Eber and Tatsuoka, 1970), and the OPQ (Occupational Personality Questionnaires) (Saville et al, 1984), or can be in a form such as identifying which of a number of diagrams fits a set of other diagrams, e.g. the Differential Aptitude Tests, abstract spatial relationships test. Although most of these tests do use questions as such, the more general term for what is presented is ‘item’. This broader term encompasses statements to be agreed with or choices between pairs of self-descriptive statements.
Why Do Employers Interview Prospective Candidates
A recruitment consultant and candidate sit on comfortable sofas in an office. The consultant refers to a series of notes he has made from the candidate’s CV and says: ‘I see that you have had experience with XYZ technology, but I’m not clear what your responsibility was for the project that your company was running. Can you tell me a little more?’ A line manager enters a syndicate room in a management training centre, briefly greets an interviewee and enters into a series of questions from a prepared list, covering the competencies of staff development, strategic planning and orientation to change. Occasionally she asks follow – up questions and probes. She makes notes continuously throughout the discussion.
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