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PSYCHOMETRIC INSTRUMENTS

Across the world, Psychometric instruments are widely used to understand various personality dimensions. Psychometric instruments are paper-pencil tests that aim to provide information about motives, self image and such other dimensions of the human mind that are difficult to measure. Since these dimensions influence all actions and on-job performance, they are considered important for recruitment , development, performance management, etc.

Benefits of using Psychometric Instruments

Quick Assessment
Easy to administer for large numbers
Cost Effective
Most would provide norms for comparable groups across the world

Vernalis has a good understanding of many popular psychometric instruments such as:

MBTI (Applied to work)	Leader Behavioral Analysis2
16 PF	Motivational profile
Belbin self Perception Inventory	Personal Power Profile
Firo B, Firo F	Team Audit Instruments
Predictive Index	Interpersonal Response Style
Occupational Personality Questionnaire	Personal Style Inventory
Thomas Profiling	Sales Aptitude Test

Validity of a Psychometric

However, there are certain limitations to the use of psychometric instruments.

It is widely accepted that even a highly accurate psychometric instrument would only have a predictive validity of 0.35.
Interpretation is based on candidate responses. Apart from faking, a candidate's responses may turn out to be wrong due to low self awareness. A candidate may genuinely believe he is very democratic, open to ideas, not playing a win-lose power battle, etc. but his behaviour may be quite the opposite. This impacts the results of the instrument, which would be that much further from reality.
Most instruments do not provide behavioural evidence.
These instruments are constructed for specific human dimensions alone and not usually open to customization for the particular requirements of a client.
Worldwide Norms may or may not be representative to a particular client industry and market.

Psychometric instruments have proven very useful in training and development. However, due to the above limitations, their use for assessment is still open to debate.

Vernalis uses psychometric instruments as one check, along with other tools, to assess competencies during assessment centres. Thus, psychometrics provide additional information, and are not the sole source of evidence for judging a person on various personality attributes.

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