Agenda
• Check In
• Psychological Testing vs. Assessment
• Brief History of Assessment
• Contemporary Approaches to Assessment
• Grouping up

Check-In

Example: The Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI)
• Most widely-used personality assessment for normal subjects (More than 2 million administrations per year)
• Based on the work of CG Jung
• Variety of “forms”
– M, G, Q
– 93-222 items

Personality Types –The Why?
• Self awareness
• Career development
• Team building
• Academic counseling
• Relationship counseling
• Dealing with conflict

Uses of MBTI
• Help clients understand themselves and their behavior/preferences
• Appreciate others and their contributions
• Make constructive use of differences

What Does the MBTI Do?
• Identifies preferences, not skills
• Open possibilities, not limit options
• All preferences are valuable (does not identify good/bad)
• All preferences can be used by each person

Self Awareness
• Communications
• Reaction to change
• Conflicts
• Leadership

Organizational Dynamics
• Teambuilding
• Coaching
• Sales

Career Counseling . . . .
• Contribution to the organization
• Leadership style
• Preferred learning style
• Problem solving approach
• Preferred work environment

Identifies Areas for Improvement
• Potential pitfalls
• Suggestions for development

Assumptions of Personality Typeology
• Inborn tendencies
• Comfort zones
• Recognizable patterns
– Change and adapt
• Predictable responses
– To Change
– Conflict
– Stress

IMPORTANT!!!!!
• Everyone is unique
• Everyone uses every preference sometime
• We can all improve communications
• Relationships will improve with practice

Myers-Briggs Types
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Common Wrong Awareness's
• Extravert IS NOT “ talkative or loud ”
• Introvert IS NOT “ shy or inhibited ”
• Feeling IS NOT “ emotional ”
• Judging IS NOT “ judgmental ”
• Perceiving IS NOT “ perceptive ”

Extravert - Introvert
How you get and use your energy
How do you restore your energy?

Extravert - Introvert
• E – People, activity, talking
(external world)
– Readily takes initiative
– “ Act first, think later ”
– Enjoys a wide variety and change in people and relationships
– Very approachable
– Develop ideas through discussion
• I – Thoughts, feelings, writing
(internal world)
– Think/reflect first, then act
– Needs “ private ” time to reflect
– One-on-one relationship or conversations
– Great listeners
– Enjoys focusing on a project

Sensing (S) – Intuitive (N)
How do you take in information?

Sensing (S) – Intuitive (N)
• S – Facts – real & tangible - now
– Carefully thought out conclusions
– Lives in the present
– “ Do something ” rather than “ think about it ”
– Fantasy is a dirty word
– Common sense solutions
• N – Possibilities –
Inspiration - future
– Use personal feelings to make decisions
– Comfortable with fuzzy data
– Inventing new possibilities is automatic
– Sometimes considered absent-minded

Thinking (T) - Feeling (F)
How do you make decisions?

Thinking (T) - Feeling (F)
• T – Decision through logic and truth
– More important to be right than liked
– Viewed as unemotional
– Focus on tasks
– Provides objective and critical analysis
• F - Decision through emotion
– Follow hunch to make quick conclusions
– Sensitive to feelings of others
– Toxic reaction to disharmony, prefer to accommodate
– Takes things too personally

Judging (J) - Perceiving (P)
How do you organize your life?

Judging (J) - Perceiving (P)
J – planned, orderly, reach closure quickly
– Get things done
– Punctual
– Likes to use a list, make plans
– Structure and order
– Works best and avoids stress when keeps ahead of deadlines and not given too much information at one time
• P – flexible, spontaneous, stay open
– Lives for the moment
– Works well under pressure and deadlines
– Creative
– Multitasks
– Avoids commitments, it interferes with flexibility

References
• Essentials of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Assessment by Naomi L. Quenk
• Introduction to Type and Coaching –A
Dynamic Guide for Individual Development by
Krebs-Hirsch & Kise

Todd’s Favorite

T’nT

A (very) Brief History of Intelligence
The concept of ‘intelligence’ is relatively new, unknown a a century ago, though it comes from older
Latin roots
Intellegere = to see into perceive, understand

19 th Century
• Jean Esquirol
– Distinguished between mental incapacity & mental illness
(“idiots” vs “deranged”)
• Sir Francis Galton –The father of psychometrically based testing movement
• Karl Pearson
• Germans: Wundt, Ebbinghaus, Wernick, others

Importance of Binet-Simon Scales
• The 1905 Binet-Simon stimulated the development of clinical psychology in the US and elsewhere.
• Its success was a triumph of pragmatism; demonstrated feasibility of mental measurement and aided in development of other tests.
• Led to public acceptance of testing and confirmed important consequences for education, industry, military and general society.

Controversy!
• Some objected to the innateness bias, and suggested the term be replaced with
• “General Scholastic Ability”
• “General Educational Ability”
However: this did not catch on as most theorists today advance a construct of intelligence that is independent of education.

Testing Practice and Influence
Testing has become a common practice in the following:
• Schools, clinics
• Industry and the military
Testing influences:
• Public policy
• Business
• Scientific psychology

Defining Intelligence
• Binet (1916) defined it as the capacity to judge well, to reason well, and to comprehend well
• Terman (1916) defined it as the capacity to form concepts and grasp their significance
• Pintner (1921) defined it as the ability of an individual to adapt well to new situations in life

Defining Intelligence (cont.)
• Thorndike (1921) defined it as the power of good responses from the point of view of truth or fact
• Thurstone (1921) defined it as the capacity to inhibit instinctive response, imagine a different response, and realize the response modification into behavior

Defining Intelligence (cont.)
• Spearman (1923) defined it as a general ability involving mainly the ability to see relations and correlates
• Wechlser (1939) defined it as the global capacity of an individual to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment

Defining Intelligence (cont.)
• Piaget (1972) defined it as referring to the superior forms of organization or equilibrium of cognitive structuring used for adaptation to the to the physical and social environment
• Sternberg (1985) defined it as the mental capacity to automatize information processing and to emit contextually appropriate behavior in response to novelty

Defining Intelligence (cont.)
• Gardner (1986) defined it as the ability to solve problems or fashion products valued within some setting.
• Carroll (1997) IQ represents the degreee to which, and the rate at which, people are able to learn, and retain in long-term memory, the knowledge and skills that can be learned from the environment

So, is it????
• Adaptation to environment
• Basic mental processes
• Higher order thinking (reasoning, problem-solving, and decision making)
• Metacognition
• Executive processes

Or, is it???
• Knowledge
• Interaction between knowledge and mental processes
• Context (value placed on intelligence by a given culture)

Maybe it is. . . . .?
• Abstract thinking or reasoning
• Problem-solving ability
• Capacity to acquire knowledge
• Memory
• Adaptation to environment
• Mental speed

Or. . . .?
• Linguistic and mathematical competence
• General knowledge
• Creativity
• Sensory acuity
• Goal directedness
• Achievement motivation

Contemporary Approaches to
Assessment?
Assessment includes a broad array of evaluative procedures that yield information about a person.
Tests (which are a component of assessment) yield scores based on the gathering of collective data.

Generally Speaking. . .
The greater the number of procedures used in assessing an individual, the greater the likelihood that they will yield a clearer snapshot of the client.

Informal
Testing
Personality
Testing
Assessment
Procedures
Ability
Testing
The
Clinical
Interview

An Overgeneralization . . . .

Types of Assessment
• Screening
• Focused
• Diagnostic
• Counseling and Rehabilitation
• Career
• Progress Monitoring
• Problem-solving

Four Pillars of Assessment
• Norm-referenced measures
• Interviews
• Behavioral observations
• Informal assessment procedures

Factors of a Multi-method Assessment
The following factors must be considered:
• Referral information
• Demographic and background information
• Assessment findings
• Interventions

Foundation for the Assessment Process
• Background
• Selection of assessment measures
• Administration of assessment measures
• Interpretation of assessment measures

Steps in the Comprehensive Assessment
Process
1. Review referral information –Frame the
Question
2. Decide whether to assess
3. Obtain relevant background information
4. Consider the influence of relevant others
5. Observe the client in several settings
6. Select and administer an assessment test battery

Steps in the Assessment Process (cont.)
7. Interpret the assessment results
8. Develop intervention strategies and recommendations
9. Write a report
10.Meet with all concerned, as appropriate
11.Follow up on recommendations and conduct re-evaluation