Perfect Personality Profiles by Helen Baron Read Free Book Online Page B

in a personality questionnaire. Such questionnaires are measures of ‘typical performance’ – that is, they are trying to assess how a person usually behaves, not the extremes of how they might behave in extraordinary circumstances. Other tests, either psychometric tests of ability, such as numerical and verbal reasoning tests, or school examination, are tests of ‘maximal performance’, which are designed to measure the best a person can possibly do in a field of performance.
    Some questionnaires are very short, with only a single page of questions. However, questionnaires are often much longer and may have 200 or more questions. Longer questionnaires tend to provide more accurate and more detailed results, but they take some time to complete – up to an hour is not unusual. There is a trade-off between the length of the questionnaire and the detail of information about personality that can be gathered and the accuracy of measurement. Short questionnaires generally provide less detailed results but are quicker to complete. Some questionnaires look at as few as four or five aspects of personality, whereas others measure 30 or more. Employers will choose the design that best suits their needs, depending on how they want to use the results.
    Some questionnaires are designed specifically for use in an employment context. These have questions or other content that are chosen to be relevant to the way people behave at work. Other questionnaires are designed for more general use, not only employment, and they tend to have broader content, which may include references to topics that are not relevant to work – relating to friends and hobbies, for example, not just employment and work contacts. A further group of questionnaires has been designed for clinical use with people who have psychological problems, and these can have very varied content and may sometimes even seem bizarre. They are not appropriate for use in a mainstream occupational context, and you should not be presented with them during a selection process. Only on rare occasions, such as when an employer refers an employee to a psychologist with some emotional problems, might such a questionnaire be used within employment.
    Questionnaires can sometimes feel quite repetitive when you complete them. Some themes seem to be repeated throughout the questionnaire, and you may feel that you have already answered some of the questions. This is, in fact, unlikely, because questionnaires rarely repeat questions exactly. However, they frequently use a few quite similar questions to enhance the accuracy of measurement and the ability to differentiate between people. Repetition can also check the consistency of responses.
    Because questionnaires are standardized instruments not all parts of every questionnaire will be relevant to every job. You may become aware of this when you are answering a questionnaire and some of the questions do not seem important for the sort of job you are applying for. Typically, an employer will look only at the relevant parts of the questionnaire in deciding on someone’s suitability for the job.
    There are several styles of content in questionnaires. Some ask you to rate or otherwise respond to single words – ‘friendly’ or ‘focused’ – and others use simple phrases and statements, such as ‘Honesty is the best policy’, ‘I will say what I mean’. Some questionnaires use quite long and specific statements, such as ‘When working on a project I need to understand what the main purpose of the work is to help me focus.’ Much of the content of the type of questionnaire you will meet in an occupational context is quite transparent – that is, it is clear what is being asked and what its relevance is to work situations.
    Some questionnaire developers feel that this approach encourages people to try to distort their answers. They prefer to use a more opaque style of question, which is difficult to relate directly to performance at