Extra credit assignment: Personality Inventories

INP 4203

For this assignment you will need to take some personality assessments, write a little bit about
each of them, and compare them to each other once youve taken all of them. The personality
tests Im recommending are listed below, but you may do othersif you find one you want to do
thats not listed, let me know and Ill take a look to see if its appropriate for this assignment.
Choose FIVE of the following (you can do all of them, but only write about five):
Meyers-Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI): http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
Big 5 (based on IPIP items): http://psychcentral.com/personality-test/start.php
Big 5 (using word pairs): http://similarminds.com/big-5-word-pair.html
Sixteen Factor Personality Questionnaire (16PF): http://similarminds.com/cattell-16-factor.html
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ): http://similarminds.com/eysenck.html
R-Drive Personality system: http://similarminds.com/r-drive.html
Locus of Control: http://similarminds.com/locus.html
The Color Test: http://www.colorquiz.com/quiz.php

Discuss EACH of the five personality inventories by itself. Consider:

The number of items

The content of each item
o What is the stimulus or stem for each item? (e.g., a pair of words, a sentence
describing behavior, etc.)
o How clear is the content of each item? For example, does it use words you dont
know or ask something that doesnt make sense (e.g., how abstract are you)?
o How do you provide your response to the items? (e.g., rating on a scale with 5
points, from strongly disagree to strongly agree)
The number of factors or traits described in your score (if applicable)
In your opinion, does the scale clearly seem to be measuring personality (face validity)?
How accurate do you think the results are (i.e., how well does your score and its
interpretation describe you and your behavior patterns)?
How much of the entire domain of personality does the scale cover?
How broad or narrow is/are the factors(s) of the scale? Does each factor cover a wide or
small range of behavior? (e.g., conscientiousness covers many aspects of behavior such
as self-discipline, neatness, competence, need for achievement, etc.)
Would it be easy to fake good (pretend to be an ideal employee) on the scale if you
were filling it out as part of a hiring process?
Do you think the measure (or any part of it) would be useful in predicting any work
criteria (e.g., job performance, counterproductive work behavior, turnover)?

Compare the five tests you took with each other. Consider:

How did the items differ between the measures?

How did the scoring differ? (e.g., did you get values on a continuum or a personality
type at the end?)
How did the scope of the tests differ? (e.g., did they seem to describe the same amount of
differences in personality or did one seem to cover a broader or narrower range of
behavior?
Do they seem to have about the same levels of accuracy (in terms of agreeing with your
own conception of yourself)?
Which did you find most useful or informative? (i.e., which taught you the most about
yourself)
Which did you find to be the most fun or interesting?