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Subject:Re: Another bogus personality test From:sphilip <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com> To:TechWR-L techwrl <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:26:24 +0700
On 23 Oct 2012, at 06:00, Richard L Hamilton <dick -at- rlhamilton -dot- net> wrote:
>
> It doesn't really matter how good the questions are, it's a bogus situation.
>
Such tests can't tell you anything about how a person will perform at work under a real situation in which things move 'too slowly' or 'too quickly' for several reasons.
1. The test relies on self-reporting, and people's impressions of themselves are notoriously inaccurate. In short, we are not the best judges of our own character.
2. When taking tests such as these, answers are often inauthentic. We all instinctively try to manage others impressions of us, which leads to…
3. The question isn't really about the situation. As Lauren pointed out a few posts back, no question stands in isolation. These tests attempt to build a pattern or profile to pigeon hole you into a certain personality type which the company may have - for completely unscientific reasons - been persuaded best fits the job role it has on offer (or that you're currently doing). The situations are intentionally vague (after all, your reaction would depend a lot on the specifics wouldn't it?) and are only attempting to elicit a series of responses that - according to the way the test-creater has coded them - fit you into some profile the test-creater wants to use.
We've had discussions about these kind of tests before. To characterise my view of them as being 'junk science' is probably putting it mildly….
As for Dan's original question about none of the options being appropriate, that's also deliberate (again as Lauren said), and the test-creater usually gets round this by prefacing the question with something along the lines of "Choose the answer which is *closest* to how you would react…'
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