Psychometrics

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Psychometrics - what are they?

We have all heard of psychometrics but can you explain what they do in plain English?

A psychometric instrument measures some aspect of human personality, behaviour or ability. These instruments have been researched in such a way as to provide scientific evidence of their reliability and validity, i.e. these measures, measure the same thing every time (reliability) and they measure what they purport to measure (validity).

Psychometric measures can be used in three main ways:

• Recruitment: where they provide information about the ability of the candidate.



• Development: where they enable the candidate to identify their strengths and weaknesses and to incorporate this knowledge into a development programme. They can also be used to help the most suitable subjects such as a management training scheme.



• Organisational development: where they give information about team dynamics, organisational culture, and ability to deal with change. Independence may, for example be particularly useful when working with senior teams to identify and resolve issues that may be limiting the effectiveness of that team.

• Psychometric instruments help to explain how people relate to each other in terms of dynamics. Dynamics are defined as the inevitable consequence of similarities and differences. They do not allow for blame or personal fault and so can be used to establish a climate of neutrality around some of the emotionally charged issues that teams face.



• Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) and Myers Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) were developed to resolve conflict. These instruments enables people to identify the conflict and to analyse its causes, in a non-judgemental way. It enables the team to focus on how they can work together and use their differences positively rather than on how each can convert the other to their own way of thinking.



• Central to the theory behind SDI, MBTI and Emotional Intelligence is the idea that whilst everyone has natural preferences in thinking style we can all develop behaviours and hence capability in the non-preferred style. So individuals and teams are encouraged to identify their weaknesses and develop.



• To kick start a team - either a new one or an existing one that has performance issues. The result of the instrument makes people talk about differences in perspective and style. It gives team members a non-judgemental vocabulary to discuss such differences with.
  
  
• It establishes a climate of openness and tolerance of others, and can provide a process for problem solving and making decisions that deploys the strengths of the team in the most effective way.
  
  
• Psychometrics can be used to establish the characteristic abilities, skills and weaknesses of a population and can help to explain organisational issues in relation to the human element. If for example a group of managers score in the lower bands of decision making ability the information will enable us to explain their perceived reluctance in making decisions.

Psychometrics