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Structured Personality
Assessments (Technical) Structured personality assessments are self-report procedures that provide statements to which the subject must either respond "true" or "false" ("yes" or "no") or choose the most characteristic of two or more alternatives. These assessments are highly structured and provide a definite, unambiguous stimulus for the subject. Scoring is straightforward and usually involves summing the number of items marked in a scored direction. The original pressure to develop personality tests (assessments) came from the demands created by World War I for a screening instrument to identify emotionally unstable recruits who might break down under the pressures of combat. The initial structured personality instrument, the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, was based on a logical-content strategy in which items were interpreted in terms of face validity. Not long after their appearance, tests based on the logical-content strategy fell into disrepute. The problem with these tests was the numerous assumptions underlying them. Included in these assumptions were that the subject complies with the instructions and provides an honest response; that the subject understands the items and is an accurate observer capable of evaluating his or her own behavior and responding in a nondefensive manner; and that the subject, test constructor, and test interpreter all define the questions in the same way. A review by A. Ellis (1946) seriously questioned all these assumptions. The first major advance in structured personality assessment came with the MMPI, which used a strategy involving criterion groups. In this criterion-group strategy, groups who had known characteristics were contrasted with a known population. Items that distinguished the criterion group were included in a scale that was then cross-validated in an independent sample of criterion and control subjects. The MMPI revitalized structured personality assessments. It made no assumptions about the meaning of a subject's response to an assessments item but rather attempted to empirically discern its meaning. In the criterion-group strategy, the content of the item is irrelevant. If a subject marks "true" to the statement "I hear loud voices when I'm alone," it is not assumed that he or she really does hear loud voices when alone. In addition to its advantages over logical-content assessments in avoiding assumptions, the MMPI has the feature of validity scales. The two most important MMPI validity scales are the K scale, which measures social desirability, and the F scale, which consists of 64 infrequently endorsed items to pick out subjects who take an unusual or unconventional approach to testing. Theoretically, excessively high scores on the validity scales can be used to identify biased results, thus avoiding the problems of faking and social desirability inherent in the logical-content approach. Despite its extensive use, the widespread interest in it by researchers, and a recent standardization (the MMPI-2), the MMPI does have problems, including its overlap among the scales, an imbalance in true-false keying, high inter-correlation among the scales, and lack of generalizability across demographic variables. The factor analytic strategy of assessments construction has been used is an effort to overcome some of the problems inherent in the criterion strategy. Factor analytic strategies attempt to find areas of common variance in order to locate the minimum number of variables that account for a set of inter-correlated data. R. B. Cattell has been the most important representative of this approach. Using the factor analytic approach to find the common variance of a trait descriptive terms in the dictionary, Cattell reduced the original pool of more than 4000 items to 16 and created the 16PF. Great care was taken to provide adequate norms. Nine separate normative samples based on demographic variables, plus an age-correction scale, are available. Also available are three sets of parallel forms for individuals of varying levels of vocabulary proficiency. The EPPS has found its primary use in counseling centers. It employs a forced-choice strategy that requires subjects to choose the more applicable of two statements. Ipsative scores, which use the subjects as his or her own frame of reference, express results in terms of the relative strength of need. A number of assessments have been developed with the theoretical strategy. Among these are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which measures temperament, and the Q-Sort technique, which measures self-concept. The modern trend is to use a combination of strategies in scale construction.Glossary of Terminology ACQUIESCENCE - The tendency to agree or to endorse assessment item as true. IPSATIVE SCORE - Results presented in a relative rather absolute terms. Ipsative scores compare the individual against himself or herself. Each person thus provides his or her own frame of reference. PERSONALITY "TEST" - An assessment that measures overt and covert dispositions of the individual (the tendency that the individual will show a particular behavior or response in any given situation). Personality assessments measure typical human behavior. SELF-REPORT QUESTIONNAIRES - A questionnaire that provides a list of statements about an individual ad requires the subject to respond in some way to each, such as "true" or "false." STRUCTURED PERSONALITY "TEST" - An assessment
that provides a statement, usually of the self-report variety, ("I
like rock and roll music"), and requires the subject to choose
between two or more alternative responses ("true" or
"false" for example). It is also sometimes known as an objective
personality test. Disclaimer: This material is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Financial, Legal and Professional information is not Financial, Legal and Professional advice. You should see a Financial, Legal or Professional in the area in which you live if you need advice. |
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