Psychometric Tests and Assessment at Work

Over the years, PsyAsia International has placed tremendous effort into putting together a knowledgebase at our website as well as a knowledge blog at assessmentcentral.com.  We continue to add to and develop these further.  We’re now offering you the opportunity to ask questions pertinent to you and for our psychologists to answer them at our blog.  Your question should be related to human resource management or business psychology. It can be under the categories listed at this blog or you may request a new category.  We may also open some questions/answers up for discussion and general comment if we feel relevant.  Please keep in mind that your question should be able to be answered within a blog submission (i.e., don’t ask anything that might require a very complex or long response!!).  Our psychologists will aim to respond to one question per day and the target time for the response is 10-15 minutes.  Answers will be posted at assessmentcentral.com and the PsyAsia knowledgebase. 

Please feel free to submit your questions now by emailing our ONLINE LEARNING SECTION. You must complete all details in the form accurately. We will not answer questions from those who enter FREE email addresses such as yahoo/google/msn etc or where a company name is not provided.  However, we will not mention your personal details in the response in order to protect your privacy. Thank you for your participation!

Comments(0)

A behavioral indicator is used in an assessment or development centre to provide an objective description of the behavior that you might view from the candidate that provides evidence that they either have or do not have the competence that you are assessing.  Behavioral indicators can therefore be positive or negative.

For example, if you were to assess the competence of “manages conflict well”, having defined the actual competency to ensure it is fully understood by all assessors or observers, you would then need to produce a list of possible positive and negative behavioral indicators for this competency.  In this example, some of the indicators might be:

Positive Behavioral Indicator: asks other people for their perspective, draws out the feeling of the group, listens to others before evaluating

Negative Behavioral Indicator: makes decisions without considering the views of others, makes excessive “I” statements rather than working towards satisfying mutual interests

During the assessment or development centre, the assessors or observers will keep a list of which of these indicators arise and when; this will enable objective and easy scoring of the candidates on the competency under assessment.

Comments(0)

It’s difficult to change from a psychometric test that you have perhaps been using for many years to a new personality assessment that you may have heard relatively little about.  We know because we underwent the same process.  When in doubt, sometimes busy humans think it’s best to leave things as they are!  However, upon spending just a few minutes invesigating what really gives in the range of Saville Wave assessments, we decided that it was a “no brainer” as they say in Australia!  It makes sense really…please read on!

The original author of the OPQ is Professor Peter Saville.  Professor Saville was in fact the ‘S’ of SHL (’H’ standing for Holdsworth and ‘L’ for Limited). He is responsible for the new Saville Wave, developed by him and his team at Saville Consulting.  He has remarked in relation to the older OPQ that it was a great test in its day.  Nowadays however, we need newer, more modern and innovative tests that are relevant to a new and constantly evolving workplace.  Looking at both the design of the Saville Wave and the content of the questions, it’s immediately noticable that the questionnaire better reflects today’s workplace.  The OPQ was written some 25 years ago.  There was some updating of the questions in 1988, but mainly the items reflect the world as it was those years ago.  The Saville Wave has captured the modern world by asking questions related to networking, engaging others, comfort level with information technology,  written communication, receiving feedback, encouraging others, developing strategy, identifying business opportunities, speed of learning, taking responsibility for big decisions, building rapport, sticking to decisions and more.  Remember, a lot of these concepts did not really exist 20+ years ago…networking for example was a whole different ball-game in the pre-internet world.  Not to mention the fact that most of us did not have to deal with IT unless we were in an IT job, whereas nowadays, vast portions of the workforce must use computers.  However, that’s not all. 

Whilst the OPQ was validated following its production, the Saville Wave was designed within a research and validation centric model.  This meant that all questions were validated internationally prior to publishing.  These results were then published in the British Psychological Society’s Selection and Development Review.  Furthermore, the Saville Wave includes completely new scales which were not available within the OPQ all those years ago.  For example, the Wave can directly assess strategic thinking, learning styles, self-assurance, motivating others, conflict resolution and integrity.

In terms of measuring different facets of behaviour, the OPQ measures to dimension (scale) level only and does not report on individual facets of behaviour. E.g., ‘Persuasive’ is made up of ‘selling’, ‘negotiating’ and ‘convincing’ facets, but these are not independently validated or scored.  Saville Wave on the other hand provides very rich interpretation at facet level. For full Wave there are 109 separately scored facets. Facets provide insights into unique areas of individual difference and therefore facilitate better person job fit and development diagnostics.

A further innovation within the Saville Consulting Wave is that it has been designed to assess both talent and motive.  This is useful as it may highlight for example that whilst a candidate is not very good at problem solving, they will give it and go and even do their best to improve.  Or, whilst a candidate is very good at creating novel solutions, they prefer to go with the tried and tested.  Saville Wave distinguishes both effectiveness and motivation for 36 behavioural styles. This provides rich diagnostic information for selection, placement and development and is key to predicting sustained performance.

The model underlying any personality assessment is a crucial factor in both the validity and utility of the tool.  Wave is built from a single model of behaviour with a common language for measuring and matching, behavioural style, motivation, competencies, culture, organisational environment and 360° performance. It is fully integrated from inception. OPQ is not multi-dimensional and relies on different measures and different models to arrive at total solutions.

When assessing a potential job-holder’s personality or when testing a current incumbent as part of a development process, we are looking for a true picture of that individual. There are many tests available on the market and many of them really do not hit the mark.  For example, assessments which aim to paint a picture of your candidate on the basis of 4 simple scales!  Whilst the OPQ has always been a respected test, it offers a choice of ratings (normative) or rankings (ipsative) with a strong practitioner preference for ipsative as it controls for social desirability responding.  Both ratings and rankings have unique advantages and disadvantages. In the case of rankings (ipsative), the resulting profile artificially exaggerates good and bad features. It is not possible to be good at everything or bad at everything.  Hence we do not get a true picture of the candidate.  With the breakthrough combination of both ratings and rankings in a dual dynamic format, Wave provides the truest picture of an individual’s self-reported style to date. This provides increased validity over normative and ipsative scores on their own. This contributes significantly to improved validity and a truer picture of the individual.  Furthermore, whilst the OPQ is able to report on social-desirable responding, it cannot home in on it.  By reporting statistically significant differences between ipsative and normative scores, Saville Wave homes in on exactly where distortion is likely to have occurred.

A hot question on the minds of test choosers is “how long does the test take to complete”!  For the OPQ, it takes about 1 hour to complete the ipsative version alone. It provides no information on motivation or culture fit, nor individual facets of behaviour.  Compare this to Saville Wave which takes about 35 minutes to complete and includes both effectiveness and motivation scores for 36 dimensions, and scores for 109 individual facets of behaviour. It provides ipsative, normative and combined profiles in the one questionnaire.  In addition, Wave reports cultural/environment enhancers and inhibitors. If even that is too long for your busy people, Saville Wave Focus, the shorter version of Wave is even shorter – taking around 15 minutes to complete and yet still offering exceptional reliability and validity.

Finally, the reason for using a personality assessment in the first place is to predict job performance.  Saville Consulting has referred to this as “horsepower”.  The technical term is Criterion Validity and this has a direct impact on return on investment. The more validity the better the people decisions. OPQ has good validity. The published average composite scale validity is around 0.38.  This is the average correlation of each scale with actual job competencies.  However, for Saville Wave, the published average composite validity is higher at 0.46 (about 20% more predictive). In addition, Wave predicts overall job proficiency at 0.38, and promotability at 0.59. 75% of Wave’s validities are 0.4 or better and 25% are between 0.55 and 0.70. Directing correlates 0.7 with ‘Leading People’.  Add this information to study results released in the UK in summer 2008 which demonstrated that Saville Consulting Wave outperformed all competitor tests on the market in predicting job performance (including OPQ, 16PF, 15FQ+, Hogan Personality Inventory, MBTI, DISC and others).  This in our view is the single biggest motivator to switching to the Saville Wave test.

So, we hope that you share with us that moving to Saville Consulting Wave really is a no-brainer!  Why continue to use tests that were developed 20-odd years ago, which ask different questions and provide different reports than are required in todays new world?  Day-after-day clients are catching the Wave in view of the above.  Isn’t it time you moved over to what is becoming the world’s leading personality assessment product?

Notes:
- This article was written by Psychologists at PsyAsia International and we strictly retain all rights and copyright (C) 2008 except those which belong to Saville Consulting Group
- This article is based on a comparison of OPQ/Wave differences written by Professor Peter Saville, parts of this article are (C) 2008 Saville Consulting Group
- No reproduction or posting on websites in any form without permission
- OPQ is a registered trademark of Saville & Holdsworth Limited
- Saville Wave is a registered trademark of Saville Consulting Group
- A summary version of this article can be downloaded at: http://www.psyasia.com/supportsuite/index.php?_m=downloads&_a=viewdownload&downloaditemid=205

Comments(0)

In Singapore, Hong Kong and across Asia we notice an increasing stream of companies who are joining the ‘bandwagon’ of selling psychometric assessment tools. They see these tools as another commodity to be sold and promise all kinds of gains. Some of them have no idea about what lies behind a psychometric test. Some of them have been on short training courses and see themselves as experts and even have a stab at designing their own tests on that basis!! We know because we have seen these people in action!! However, they have not have the more than 6 years of training in psychology that our psychologists have had. They were not subject to 2 or more years of supervised practice like us (yes, very similar to the requirements for medical degrees and practice!).  They are not members of professional psychological associations like us. They are not bound to register with professional bodies like us and they do not have the same focus on and passion for science in their solutions. Rather we see them as motivated by both money and a passion to be consultants but without appropriate training (and typically they would not get away with this in the West!!).

Choose PsyAsia International rather than non-Psychologist consultancies for Psychometric Tests because:

• We are REAL PSYCHOLOGISTS.

• When using tests you’ll have lots of questions about their proper and effective use. Only real psychologists can competently and reliably provide this expert advice.  Try asking some technical questions of a non-Psychologist provider and watch them stumble!

• We have undergone a minimum of 6 years of training in Psychology followed by supervised practice - this has made us experts. Those who undertake short 1-6 day courses in psychology or psychometrics are not experts.

• Due to our high level qualifications and experience, we are licensed by the Australian Psychological Society to co-brand. We are therefore answerable to the society and undertake to abide by their code of ethics.

• As fully registered psychologists (we register internationally where rules and registration requirements are more strict than in Asia), we must undertake continuous professional development - we must attend conferences, training and presentations, and read our professional journals constantly. Many non-Psychologist “consultants” rely on small snippets of knowledge that they collect over time, rather than the above.

• A number of our psychologists are actually lecturers in Asian universities

• We are Scientists. Most modern Psychology degrees are degrees in Science (i.e., BSc, MSc). As scientists, we value evidence-driven solutions. We’ve seen many of our competition designing non-scientific assessment tools in order to make money but without sufficient attention to evidence and science to ensure the system works as it should. We know how to not only scientifically design assessments, but also how to scientifically assess their continued effectiveness.  If you were to place most of our competition in front of our statistical analysis software they would have no idea where to start - meaning that you can never be confident that the tools you purchase from them are valid!!

• A number of our Psychologists have had their Scientist status endorsed by the British Psychological Society and are actually Chartered Scientists - an honour bestowed upon only a very few!  In addition, our director (a doctor of psychology) was awarded the British Psychological Society Prize for Scientific Contribution to Occupational Psychology for his Psychometric Assessment work in the UK!

• Finally, because we know our stuff, we’ve had the honour of publishing in international peer reviewed journals.  Sure, our non-psychologist competition can write their daily blogs with information often taken from other parts of the web.  We rarely if ever see their own original work published in top-tier international journals though.

We trust that you will see from the above how PsyAsia International’s Psychologists have a wealth of experience, education and expertise in Psychology and Psychometrics as well as other forms of assessment.  Usually our expertise is in far greater measure than those companies whose main focus is not in applying Psychology to the workplace or employing psychologists.

Comments(0)

PsyAsia International is pleased to host a free online seminar (webinar) which will be presented by Management Consultant Jim Bowden. Jim is based in Brisbane, Australia. He, along with Professor Richard Hicks, is the developer and publisher of the Apollo Profile which PsyAsia distributes in Asia.

Jim’s webinar will take you through the Apollo Profile. He will talk about how it was developed and how it is different from other personality assessments given that it compares your candidate with excellence. Jim will also demonstrate the Best Match mass screening system as well as the new Apollo Select system.

No need to leave your desk and scheduled to run during the lunch hour (12.30pm China/Hong Kong/Singapore), this webinar will be useful for anybody involved in human resource decisions, including HR and Training Managers, Coaches, Career and School Counsellors and Psychologists.

Title: Comparing your potential employees with excellence - Using the Apollo Profile: Psychometric Test and Profiling System

Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Time: 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM SGT

System Requirements

PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/551941807

Comments(0)

PsyAsia International is pleased to invite you to a free webinar which focuses on the use of the Identity Self-perception Questionnaire to improve employee selection decisions.  The developers and publishers of Identity will log-in from the UK to present to our audience.  For more information and online registration, kindly visit:

http://www.psyasia.com/singapore_human_resource_seminars.htm

Comments(0)