Standardized personality assessment: the Sixteen Factor Questionnaire

¶ … standardized tests: the Sixteen Factor Personality Questionnaire, the California Psychological Inventory, the 16 PF (fifth edition), and the Marital Satisfaction Inventory.

Sixteen Factor Personality Questionnaire, fifth edition (16PF; Russell, & Karol, 1994).

Description and Assessment

The 16 PF, fifth edition consists of 185 items that make up the 16 personality scales. Each of the 16 scales is composed of 10 to 15 items. The test is a self -- report inventory of true -- false questions that can be administered individually or as a group with either pencil and answer sheet or via computerized administration. The fifth edition of the 16 PF also offers a ? (I don't know) response in addition to the true false responses. The? response is designed to be used in cases where the respondent is not sure whether particular item applies to them.

The test produces 16 primary factor scores they can also be used to make up five global factor scores. There also three response style indicators (Impression Management, Infrequency, and Acquiescence).

Purpose

Originally developed by Raymond Cattell 1949 the 16 PF is a broad measure personality designed to predict a wide range of behaviors in adults over the age of 16. It is intended to be used across school settings, clinical and counseling settings, business settings, and in research settings. It is recommended to be used to predict certain performance criteria, develop behavioral ratings, assess and describe personality and personality changes across individuals. The fifth edition of the 16 PF is not designed to measure psychopathology or dimensions of abnormal personality and has a limited range of predictive values and must be used cautiously and that is designed to measure factors of normal adult personality. The authors comment that the test should be used in conjunction with other measures of personality.

Population

The 16 PF is designed to be used by individuals aged 16 years or older.

Assessment Properties

The normative data for the fifth edition of the 16 PF were updated based on a stratified sample of 2500 individuals relative to the 1990 U.S. Census data on the basis of gender, ethnicity, age, education and (however, it appears that adults over the age of 54 were underrepresented and those between the ages of 15 and 17 years were overrepresented).

Two week test -- retest reliability coefficients for the global factors ranged from .84 to .91, whereas the test -- retest coefficients for the global factors ranged from .69 to .87. The two-month test -- retest coefficients fell to a mean of .78 for the global factors in the medial .7 for the primary factors. Cronbach's alpha values ranged from .65 to .85 with a mean of .74.

The construct and criterion validity of the 16 PF were confirmed with earlier versions of the test and were not reported for this version.

Administering Criteria

A Master's Degree in psychology, social work, education, or any healthcare field; membership in a healthcare-related organization, or special training in assessment are required for administration of the 16PF fifth edition.

California Psychological Inventory 260 (CPI 260; Gough & Bradley, 2005)

Description and Assessment

The CPI 260 is a self -- report personality inventory consisting of 260 self -- descriptive statements that can be administered in group or individual formats. The respondent either agrees or disagrees with each of these statements via a pencil and paper format (answers are true/false). The test is often scored by a computer program, but can be scored by hand, and the results produce 29 scale scores. Of the 29 scale scores 26 of the skills or group of the five categories including: Dealing with Others, Self -- Management, Motivation and Thinking Style, Personal Characteristics, and Work Related Measures. The remaining three scales are higher order measures of the person's Orientation Toward Others, Orientation Toward Societal Values, and Orientation Toward the Self.

Purpose

The purpose of the CPI 260 is to provide the respondent a "true -- two -- life description" in everyday language that allows the person to develop a better understanding of themselves. The CPI 260 was developed in response to requests from businesses for a shorter and more user-friendly version of the California Personality Inventory 434. The CPI to 60 is used more often in human resource organizations and business personality testing.

Population

The CPI 260 is designed to be used for individuals age 13 and older.

Assessment Properties

Norms for the CPI 260 were drawn from the normative sample in the 1996 -- 2002 CPI manual (N = 1000), a survey conducted in the United Kingdom the CPI 434 (N equals 2001), a French sample (N equals 1424). In a sample from Italy (N equals 1362). The French and Italian norms were based on the CPI 480.

Reliability was established using coefficient alpha for the U.S. sample, the UK sample, and other samples. These coefficients ranged from a low of .36 for the Law Enforcement Orientation scale to a high of .86 Ford the Dominance scale in the U.S. sample.

Validity for the CPI 260 was achieved by correlating its scales with the corresponding skills from the CPI 434. Two sets of correlations were used to select items for the CPI 260 including correlations with a total score on the CPI 434 and correlations with external non-test criteria are which apparently are not described in the manual. All the items in the CPI 260 were derived from the CPI 434 with the exception of two scales (Community and Sensitivity). The correlations between the CPI 260 scales and the CPI 434 scales range from .81 to.97

Assessment Criteria

A masters or doctorate degree in psychology fulfill the educational requirements for an assessor, the manual also recommends completing a certification program.

Marriage Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI -- R; Snyder,1997)

Description and Assessment

The MSI -- R is a 150 item self-report inventory that can be administered in a group or individual format. The items are answered any true/false format. The test can be administered in a computer or pencil and paper format. The results can be scored either by hand or on the computer program. The computer generalized scoring program offers any clinical readout and description of the results.

Purpose

The purpose of the MSI -- R is to determine any diagnoses, goal setting issues in therapy, rapport building issues, communication issues, or to gauge progress with couples involved in psychotherapy. These couples can include married couples, engaged couples, dating couples, and same -- gender couples. The results produce 13 scales ranging from Global Distress, to Problem -- Solving Communication, Aggression, Conflict over Child-Rearing, and one validity scale (Inconsistency). Higher scores on the scales represent greater distress/dissatisfaction with the content related to that scale.