IPIP-NEO Personality Test

The International Personality Item Pool test, commonly known as the IPIP-NEO test, measures an employee's personality on five broad personality categories and 30 sub-categories. Organizations can use this test to evaluate an employee's ability to get along in a multicultural setting, which is important because globalization brings employees, customers and suppliers from around the world. The five broad categories and sub-categories are extraversion or gregariousness, with sub-categories of friendliness, social engagement and activity level; agreeableness, which involves trust, altruism and cooperation; conscientiousness, with sub-categories of self-confidence, cautiousness and achievement; neuroticism or self-consciousness, which refers to sensitivity to other people's opinions; and openness to new experiences, which includes adventurousness and the readiness to challenge authority.

Kolbe Index

The Kolbe Index, named after organizational theorist Kathy Kolbe, is based on the premise that an employee's problem-solving abilities are stable and independent of intelligence, personality and education. The index specifies four problem-solving modes: fact finder, which involves information gathering; follow-through, which refers to the scheduling and organizing of activities; quick start, which means innovation and risk taking; and the solution implementation process. Employees answer several multiple-choice questions based on problem-solving scenarios. The scores for each of the four modes reveal whether an employee is likely to initiate action, respond to needs or prevent problems. Companies can use this assessment method to match employees with the right jobs and improve organizational performance.

Flanagan Industrial Tests (FIT)

The FIT battery offers 18 individually sold tests that are used for selection, placement, reassignment, and vocational counseling. It offers 18 individually sold tests that are designed to help measure distinct aptitudes or functions important to a variety of industrial positions. Percentile norms are based on more than 40 job classifications. Validation studies were conducted in various companies for a variety of jobs and measures were found to be related to job performance. Note: The FIT battery differs from the FACT battery in that the FIT tests are generally for upper-level positions and have shorter time limits.

The tests may be used separately or in any combination. They are designed for Supervisory, technical, office, skilled labour and other industrial positions. These are paper and pencil tests and each package of 25 booklets contains one type of test. They are hand-scored with scoring stencil, yielding 18 individual scores. Each test takes about 5-15 minutes to complete.

Arithmetic- Ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Five-minute time limit.Assembly- Ability to visualize how separate pieces will look as a whole. Ten-minute time limit.Components- Ability to identify a simple figure that is part of a complete drawing. Ten-minute time limit.Coordination- Ability to control hand and arm movements while working through a series of mazes. Five-minute time limit.Electronics- Ability to understand electrical and electronic principles as well as analyze diagrams of electrical circuits. Fifteen-minute time limit.Expression- Knowledge of correct grammar and sentence structure. Five-minute time limit.Ingenuity- Ability to think of ingenious and effective ways of solving problems. Fifteen-minute time limit.Inspection- Ability to spot imperfections or flaws in a series of objects. Five-minute time limit. Judgment and Comprehension- Ability to read and comprehend given information. Fifteen-minute time limit.Mathematics and Reasoning- Ability to reason through mathematical word problems. Fifteen-minute time limit.Mechanics- Ability to understand mechanical principles and analyze mechanical movement. Fifteen-minute time limit.Memory- Ability to memorize different terms and their meanings. Ten-minute time limit.Patterns- Ability to perceive and reproduce pattern outlines accurately. Five-minute time limit.Planning- Ability to plan, organize and schedule various types of activities. Fifteen-minute time limit.Precision- Capacity for precision work with small objects. Five-minute time limit.Scales- Ability to read scales, graphs and charts. Five-minute time limit.Tables- Ability to read tables quickly and accurately. Five-minute time limit.Vocabulary- Knowledge of words used in business and government environments. Fifteen-minute time limit.

Normative Data Percentile norms and stanines provided are based on more than 40 job classifications. Percentile norms and stanines are also listed for 12th-grade students and male university students entering their first year.

Validation Studies FIT was validated in various companies and was found to be predictive of job success for a number of different jobs.

Beck Anxiety Inventory

Purpose:Designed to discriminate anxiety from depression in individuals.

Population:Adults.

Score:Yields a total score

Time:(5-10) minutes.

Author:Aaron T. Beck.

Publisher:The Psychological Corporation.

Description:The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was developed to address the need for an instrument that would reliably discriminate anxiety from depression while displaying convergent validity. Such an instrument would offer advantages for clinical and research purposes over existing self-report measures, which have not been shown to differentiate anxiety from depression adequately.

Scoring:The scale consists of 21 items, each describing a common symptom of anxiety. The respondent is asked to rate how much he or she has been bothered by each symptom over the past week on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 to 3. The items are summed to obtain a total score that can range from 0 to 63.

Reliability:The scale obtained high internal consistency and item-total correlations ranging from .30 to .71 (median=.60). A subsample of patients (n=83) completed the BAI after 1 week, and the correlation between intake and 1-week BAI scores was .75.

Validity:The correlations of the BAI with a set of self-report and clinician-rated scales were all significant. The correlation of the BAI with the HARS-R and HRSD-R were .51 and .25, respectively. The correlation of the BAI with the BDI was .48. Convergent and discriminant validity to discriminate homogeneous and heterogeneous diagnostic groups were ascertained from three studies. The results confirm the presence of these validities.

Norms:The three normative samples of psychiatric outpatients were drawn from consecutive routine evaluations at the Center for Cognitive Therapy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The total sample size was 1,086. There were 456 men and 630 women.

Suggested Uses:Recommended for use in assessing anxiety in clinical and research settings.Beck Depression Inventory - 2nd Edition

Purpose:Designed to determine presence and severity of symptoms of depression.

Population:Adolescents and adults.

Score:Produces single score indicating intensity of the depressive symptoms.

Time: 5-10 minutes, longer for patients with severe depression or obsessional disorders.

Author:Aaron T. Beck, Robert A. Steer, and Gregory K. Brown.

Publisher:the Psychological Corporation.

Description:The Beck Depression Inventory Second Edition (BDI-II) is a 21-item self-report instrument intended to assess the existence and severity of symptoms of depression as listed in the American Psychiatric Association'sDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental DisordersFourth Edition (DSM-IV; 1994). This new revised edition replaces the BDI and the BDI-1A, and includes items intending to index symptoms of severe depression, which would require hospitalization. Items have been changed to indicate increases or decreases in sleep and appetite, items labeled body image, work difficulty, weight loss, and somatic preoccupation were replaced with items labeled agitation, concentration difficulty and loss of energy, and many statements were reworded resulting in a substantial revision of the original BDI and BDI-1A. When presented with the BDI-II, a patient is asked to consider each statement as it relates to the way they have felt for the past two weeks, to more accurately correspond to the DSM-IV criteria.

Scoring: Each of the 21 items corresponding to a symptom of depression is summed to give a single score for the BDI-II. There is a four-point scale for each item ranging from 0 to 3. On two items (16 and 18) there are seven options to indicate either an increase or decrease of appetite and sleep. Cut score guidelines for the BDI-II are given with the recommendation that thresholds be adjusted based on the characteristics of the sample, and the purpose for use of the BDI-II. Total score of 0-13 is considered minimal range, 14-19 is mild, 20-28 is moderate, and 29-63 is severe.

Reliability:BDI has been used for 35 years to identify and assess depressive symptoms, and has been reported to be highly reliable regardless of the population. It has a high coefficient alpha, (.80) its construct validity has been established, and it is able to differentiate depressed from non-depressed patients. For the BDI-II the coefficient alphas (.92 for outpatients and .93 for the college students) were higher than those for the BDI- 1A (.8 6). The correlations for the corrected item-total were significant at .05 level (with a Bonferroni adjustment), for both the outpatient and the college student samples. Test-retest reliability was studied using the responses of 26 outpatients who were tested at first and second therapy sessions one week apart. There was a correlation of .93, which was significant atp< .001. The mean scores of the first and second total scores were comparable with a pairedt(25)=1.08, which was not significant.

Validity:One of the main objectives of this new version of the BDI was to have it conform more closely to the diagnostic criteria for depression, and items were added, eliminated and reworded to specifically assess the symptoms of depression listed in the DSM-IV and thus increase the content validity of the measure. With regard to construct validity, the convergent validity of the BDI-II was assessed by administration of the BDI-1A and the BDI-II to two sub-samples of outpatients (N=191). The order of presentation was counterbalanced and at least one other measure was administered between these two versions of the BDI, yielding a correlation of .93 (p