EVALUATION OF

PSYCHOMETRIC TOOLS

Ankit Amlan Fieldwork Intern, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited

Psychological Assessment

Psychological Assessment

Measurement

Correct/incorrect item responses

Tests

Not using correct/ incorrect responses

Questionnaires/Inventories

Non-measurement

Interviews, observations

etc.

Other questionnaires/ checklists

etc.

•Measurement is the assignment of numbers to properties or attributes of people,

objects or events using a set of rules

•It uses a set of rules to quantify these. They must be standardized, clear, understandable

and easy to apply

Core Characteristics of Assessment

Standardized administration

• So that the administration and instructions are the same for everyone who takes them

A scientific rationale for what is being measured

An explanation of construction

Use of a large sample to establish norms or a process for comparison with others

Accuracy and error measures

The dangers of not doing so

• Purchasing an assessment which is inappropriate for the purpose required

• Purchasing one which is of poor quality

• Not understanding how to use the assessment

• Not administering or scoring the assessment effectively

• Misusing the test and the interpretation

Types of Measurements

How well a person performs in a particular field following instruction or teaching.

They range from abstract concepts to practical knowledge

Abstract reasoning

Numerical reasoning

Musical sensitivity

Programming aptitude

Spelling and grammar

These are the qualities, which are temporary and can be learnt and developed over a period of time.

Includes assessments of personality, belief, values and interests

Typical ways of thinking and behaving, being referred to as underlying characteristics or traits

Often assessed by self-report measures having multiple scales

The 16 Personality Factor questionnaire (16PF)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ)

These are traits which are generally permanent in nature in an individual

Measures of maximum performance

Measures of typical performance

Scales and Inventories for

Psychological Assessment

Nominal Scales

• Classify people into categories by labelling and

• Convenient method of describing them as individuals or groups

• Only a limited number of transformations and statistics can be conducted on data

Ordinal Scales

• More precise level of measurement than nominal scales and place people in some kind of hierarchical order by assigning numbers

• The scale is relative to the set of people being measured

Interval scales

• Like ordinal scales, assign numbers to indicate whether individuals are less than, greater than or equal to each other, but represent the difference between them

• intelligence tests

Ratio Scales

• Highest or ideal level of measurement, have a ‘true’ value of 0, indicating

• A complete absence of what is measured and also possess the characteristics of an interval scale

Psychological assessment scores , generally involves measurement on ordinal scales which

enable comparison of an individual with other which is then converted to interval scales for

representation.

Design of Personality Questionnaires

Yes – No items

• ‘I have often cried whilst watching sad films’. Yes – No.

Personal information

• I would rather work:

• a. in a business office, supervising people

• b. ?

• c. in a library, on my own

True – False items

• ‘People in authority frighten me’. True – False

Like – Dislike items

• ‘Spiders’. Like – Dislike

Items Having Rating Scales

• Strongly agree, agree, in-between, disagree, strongly disagree

Forced-choice Items

• When you are working, do you …

• enjoy times when you have to work hard to meet a deadline, or

• dislike working under undue stress, or

• try to plan ahead so that you don’t work under pressure?

Theories of personality

Types Theory Represent distinct groups of

people characterized by a unique configuration of features

Makes it easier to cope with a complex social world through labelling personality ‘types’

They also use rigid labels, which can be misleading

MBTI is an example of Type test

Trait Theory Usually used by psychologists

to study the various traits possessed by individuals which results in a particular behaviour

They are more straightforward than types, and are capable of measurement

They form a normally distributed continuum on a scale, having a mean score at the centre

PI is an example of Trait test

Paradigms of Assessment

The Psychodynamic Paradigm

• Lack scientific rigour and methods

• Different behaviours could be indicators of the same underlying impulse

The Cognitive-behavioural Paradigm

• Our behaviour defines our personalities

• Performance of role models could be observed and imitated by others

• Assessments involving individuals and situational variables, making use of observations, diaries and interviews

The Trait Paradigm

• Relatively enduring characteristics

• Independent of any stimulus external to a person

• Describes personality in terms of continuous scales and an inventory is made up of any number of them

The Trait paradigm

The trait paradigm assumes that:

Our thoughts, feelings and behaviours vary in a number of ways.

These variations can be measured.

When they are measured, they are normally distributed like other characteristics.

Eysenck (1967) suggested there are three dimensions along which personality varies:

• Introversion – Extraversion

• Neuroticism – Stability

• Psychoticism – Normality

These can be rated on a scale of zero to maximum for the purpose of rating

Cattell identified 16 important dimensions or ‘source traits’ which later came as 16PF(Personality Factor)

In contrast, some inventories appear to measure more of the original surface traits, such as the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ)

Source Traits 16PF

Psychometrics in India

Psychometric tests are widely used in the US and Europe

However, psychometric assessments are in a nascent stage in India

Some of the widely used psychometric tools:

Thomas profiling

16PF

Firo B

Predictive Index

DISC

MBTI

Personality and Preference Inventory-Normative (PAPI): Used predominantly used in India for hiring. It is also used for people who are in the system with up to 2 years of experience

SHL: competency tool for India

The Hay Group's psychometric tool

Purpose of the tests

Recruitment and selection

• Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Preference Inventory-Normative (PAPI) are used in India predominantly for hiring

Learning and development

Competency mapping

Performance appraisal

Validation of Interviews

55%

9%

18%

18%

Percentage of usage

Fresher level

Lateral hiring

Managerial level

Senior level

•In IT companies, psychometric assessments are

used for entry level

•In campus hiring psychometric tools are not

used, because of the costs and the time

•At the senior level psychometric tests are used

to check the technical knowledge of the person

in a domain.

Recruitment and Selection

Psychometric tests are used in the hiring process as

a validation tool for interviews and are therefore

often administered after interviewing

Psychometric tests don't come cheap

Last round of interviewing

In some cases, when not validation but, elimination is

a motive, psychometric tests are used before

interviewing

Study of different existing

Psychometric tests

MBTI

SHL CEB

DDI

Predictive Index (PI)

Hogan

MBTI (Myers- Briggs Type Indicator)

Developed by Briggs Myer’s out of the theories of Carl Jung, to describe 16 personality types based on the 4 dichotomies:

Extraversion – Introversion

Sensing – Intuition

Thinking – Feeling

Judging – Perceiving

Used in areas of pedagogy, team building, leadership training, executive coaching

89 of the Fortune 100 companies use it.

Statistical Validity of this method is questionable. Origins from psychoanalysis and hence, speculative

The 16 outcomes appear to represent ‘pure’ types and it is unlikely people will be purely one of them. People can be extroverted in some situations and introverted at others; they may be capable of both objective and subjective thought

Doesn’t include any assessment of test-takers’ attitudes, so conclusions can be distorted

SHL – OPQ32 (Occupational

Personality Questionnaire)

SHL’s Occupational Personality questionnaires provides

an indication of an individual’s preferred behavioural

style at work

Developed out of Item response theory containing

forced choices method of questionnaires having 32

personality traits being measured in terms of their

dominance

Used in selection, career development, team building

etc.

SHL is one of the few providers of cognitive ability tests

Predictive Index (PI)

Skill and behaviour assessment test used by many organizations

Originally a Trait type of test based on the Humanistic Psychology of human drives

It measures four drives in Humans:

Drive for Dominance

Drive for Extroversion

Drive for Patience

Drive for Formality

Using these drives, there are selection based questionnaires on “What people expect of us to do” and “What we actually do”.

Using the answers of the question leads to the mapping of data on the basis of self, self concept and synthesis, which is represented graphically.

Actively used worldwide by major corporate giants for recruitment, leadership development and career-planning.

DDI (Development Dimensions

International)

DDI’s pre- employment testing is a direct test which includes both normative and ipsative test manuals.

Multiple and repetitive questions ensure accuracy and validity of traits.

Eliminates the guesswork and helps in making the best decisions

• Candidates with higher scores are top performers

Better Hiring Decisions

• Can quickly zero-in on the most eligible candidate

Greater Process efficiency

• Results pin-point candidates who are more likely to engaged and stay longer

Most Eligible Candidate

• Gives a very larger picture of the personality

• Can be used for testing data and career development

Complete picture

India Inc.

More than 50%

Organizations used,

explored or

considered

psychometric tests

Could increase to

87% by 2016

More than 90% of

the companies

which have adopted

it, use it across all

verticals

However a large number of organizations, consider psychometric

tools but don’t use the tools for reasons such as Cost

Lack of knowledge in the domain

Validity and reliability of these tools

Selling psychometric tests to top management

Lack of statistics showing value for money

Reluctance of senior job applicants to fill out a test

Expectations of the Indian

Organizations

• Provide differences in candidates

• A test that can be used more often, on a large number of people, which is less costly

• Clear on what the company is hiring for - competency framework for the company

• Tools specific to Indian environment

• Flexibility of an online system and cost effectiveness

• A tool to provide specific training assessment and feedback

• A tool which can address the issues of attrition by mapping employee traits

Recommendation

Development of tools to address the menace of attrition should be prepared. Interviewing is not enough to gauge the factors of attrition. Implementing a psychometric screening tool that can predict and reduce attrition in addition to the selecting methods

A system to provide a low cost psychometric tool covering all the aspects

Successful implementation of psychometric tools other than recruitment, for competency mapping

There should be a tool which can map the ROI for recruitment