Personality Assessment Instrument

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Let's take a closer look. This response provides information from various sources for each section, making it fairly easy to take it to the next step of writing your final copy.

In compare and contrasts, one approach is to describe the first instrument, and then as you describe the other measures, you add words like, In comparison to the (name of tool), the validity for this test is.... And so on.

RESPONSE:

1. Compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of MYERS-BRIGGS,MILLION INVENTORIES (MCMI & MACI), CALIFORNIA PERSONALITY INVENTORY (CPI) personality assessment instruments.

The Myers Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI)

The Myers Briggs Type Inventory is based on Jungian personality-type psychological theory--one of the main personality theories. It is considered the major psychometric instrument and has been extensively tested for reliability and validity, and used in a large number of basic and education research studies. Results from reliability and validity testing indicate that the MBTI reliably measures personality characteristics predicted by Jungian theory (http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-development/789004-1.html)

Validity and Reliability

Personality is qualitative and therefore difficult to measure, so psychological instruments cannot have the same consistency you would expect from, say, a ruler. But there are generally accepted standards for psychological instruments. The MBTI® instrument meets and exceeds the standards for psychological instruments in terms of its reliability and validity.

Benefits ad facts about the MBTI instrument reliability:

? Reliability (when scores are treated as continuous scores, as in most other psychological instruments) is as good as or better than other personality instruments.
? On retest, people come out with three to four type preferences the same 75% to 90% of the time.
? When a person changes type on retest, it is usually on one of the dichotomous pairs (e.g., E-I or S-N), and in a dichotomy where the preference clarity was low.
? The reliabilities are quite good across most age and ethnic groups. (The T-F pair tends to have the lowest reliability of the four scales.)
? For some groups reliability can be low, and caution needs to be exercised in using the MBTI instrument with these groups, e.g., children, underachieving students. When the MBTI instrument is used with groups that are reported to have been demonstrably lower, the results can be used as a jumping-off point for discussion. http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/reliability-and-validity.asp

Validity is the degree to which an instrument measures what it intends to measure, and the degree to which the "variable" that the instrument measures has meaning. If personality type is real (or rather, if it reflects the real world with accuracy), then we should be able to use MBTI type to understand and predict people's behavior to some degree. The type should help us differentiate the values, attitudes, and behaviors of different people. Many studies over the years have proven the validity of the MBTI instrument in three categories: (a) the validity of the four separate preference scales; (b) the validity of the four preference pairs as dichotomies; and (c) the validity of whole types or particular combinations of preferences. Many of these studies are discussed in the MBTI® Manual (Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc., 1998). (Adapted from Building People, Building Programs (chapter 7) by Gordon Lawrence and Charles Martin (CAPT 2001).For additional detailed research information for the MBTI instrument, including psychometrics, reliability, and validity, refer to the MBTI® Manual, third edition (Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. 1998, as cited in http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/reliability-and-validity.asp)

Comprehensiveness

It is a comprehensive measure of personality because Jung's theory emphasizes the entire personality ("type") of the individual, not the separate characteristics ("traits"). According to theory, a type (e.g., extraverted thinker supported by intuition) consists of various traits (e.g., extraversion, thinking, intuition, and judging) that interact to form the personality. Because of this interaction effect, a trait in one type will have a different effect on the personality than the same trait in another type (Wheeler, 2001, http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-development/789004-1.html).

Applicability

The MBTI Manual includes this highlighted statement on p. 360: "It is inappropriate to use the MBTI for hiring, promotion, or selection. Results on the Indicator simply do not give information that will be helpful in these functions."

Cultural Utility

There is a growing body of research supports the cross-cultural validity of type theory. In studies around the world, people find that type concepts and descriptions make sense and are useful to them. Type distributions for whole populations and for vocational subgroups in other countries are very similar to what has been found in the United States. The National Representative Sample, which was used to develop Form M, included African Americans and Hispanics; the type distributions of these samples (see Table 14.1 on p.379 of the MBTI Manual). However, although type appears to be universal, how it is expressed is influenced by cultural values. Practitioners need to be sensitive to this and also to cultural customs and issues around psychological testing and the relation of the individual to the group (http://www.aptinternational.org/getdoc/9d086548-d744-4e81-b286-5ca858689fd1/MBTI%C2%AE-Faq.aspx).

The MBTI has been translated into 21 languages to date and the reliability and validity hold true across languages and cultures. However, even though the use of the MBTI is growing exponentially internationally. Foreign language versions of the MBTI instrument cannot be simple translations but must be normed on the populations for which they are intended. (The Manual has a helpful chapter on using the MBTI assessment in multicultural settings, cited inhttp://www.aptinternational.org/getdoc/9d086548-d744-4e81-b286-5ca858689fd1/MBTI%C2%AE-Faq.aspx).

Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III)

The MCMI--III ...