• It is an adaptive test, meaning that it tailors question difficulty on the fly to suit the test-taker’s ability level, and can be administered unsupervised.
• It focuses on general mental ability, or g, which is consistently shown to be the best single predictor of job performance and trainability.
• It is an ideal screening tool.

Adaptive Testing

The Adapt-g is an adaptive test, which means that the test becomes more difficult if the test-taker is performing well, and becomes easier if the test-taker is struggling.  Questions are selected from a large pool based on difficulty.  This approach has several advantages:

• The test is suitable for a wide range of abilities and role types.
• Because the test is different each time, the Adapt-g can be administered unsupervised.
• By asking questions of an appropriate difficulty level, the test is much shorter than traditional tests, but does not compromise measurement accuracy.

Behind the scenes, adaptive tests are more complex than traditional tests.  Nevertheless, they are robust enough to be used in a variety of high-profile testing situations.  In the United States, these include the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), Microsoft Certified Professional exams, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test Battery (ASVAB), and the Uniform CPA Examination for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.  The Adapt-g has been in development and has undergone prolonged testing – in live, real-world contexts – for several years.

Adapt-g and General Mental Ability

General mental ability, or g, is a person’s overall ability to understand complex ideas, learn new material, and adaptively solve problems.  The Adapt-g assesses a person’s general mental ability by examining their capacity to reason using words, numbers, and abstract concepts.  Although these different aspects of reasoning rely on different specific skills, g is at the heart of all of them.  More importantly, g is thought to underpin performance in a huge variety of real-world tasks.  It is not surprising, then, that general mental ability is the best single predictor of performance and trainability in the workplace, especially for roles requiring higher levels of mental acuity.

Adapt-g Assessment and Reports

The adaptive nature of the Adapt-g means that it is shorter than standard ability tests (45 questions compared to 80 or more in the GRT1 or GRT2).  Moreover, because it asks a different set of questions each time, it is ideal for unsupervised mass screening.

Because Adapt-g focuses on one score, g, it is easy to rank candidates against one another.  In fact, GeneSys Online does this for you automatically by using group Excel reports.  The traditional verbal, numerical, and abstract reasoning scores are still there, though, as are individual reports with a full description of a candidate’s performance.  The Adapt-g has a norm group of over 3,000 real-world respondents.

Why Custom Norms?

Generic norms are fine when you only need to (a) rank-order candidates, or (b) have an idea of where a candidate sits in a general population.  But do you really have a clear picture of what that generic group looks like?  And hence what test scores are really telling you about behaviour?  You’re probably far more familiar with people in your own organisation or industry.  Wouldn’t it be nice to know where a candidate sits relative to that group – a group that you know well?  It could give you a much clearer and more concrete idea of how the candidate might behave and what they might be capable of.  This is where specialised, custom norms come in.

Does Your Norm Group Represent?

The people in your norm group should be a microcosm of the group you want them to represent.  So, don’t just blindly throw all respondents into your custom norm!

• Does each respondent fit the bill?  If your custom norm is “Acme Clerical Staff”, your norm group should only contain people who are – or at least have been –employees of Acme in a clerical role.
• Did respondents sit the test recently enough?  It is best not to incorporate data that are obsolete, particularly if the shape of the organisation changes quickly over time.
• Is the overall norm group a fair representation?  The mix of people should roughly match the group you’re trying to represent.  Does it contain approximately the right mix of males and females?  Ethnicities?  Ages?  Education?  Job categories?  Other potentially important attributes?  If it doesn’t, find which groups are clearly over-represented and randomly remove respondents accordingly[1].
• Did respondents sit the assessment in the same context that the norm will be used?  Candidates who sat assessments in a selection context may respond differently from those who responded in a development context.  Ensure you’ve got the right ones for how you’re going to use the norm.

Are Your Data Clean?

Norms are only as good as their underlying data.  You need to look carefully at each respondent’s data, down to the level of individual item responses.  Remove respondents who:

• Didn’t pay attention.  Watch for long sequences of the same response (e.g., 1, 1, 1, …), repeating response patterns (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, …), unusually low scores in ability tests, and overly moderate scores in personality tests (with high infrequency scores, if assessed).  These indicate inattention.
• Didn’t complete enough items.  If the number of items completed is extremely low, it suggests that the test was not finished properly.
• Were testing out the assessment.  Sometimes, people complete assessments for testing or evaluation purposes.  If you identify such instances, remove them.
• Have highly inaccurate biodata.  Sometimes, respondents enter biographical data that are clearly inaccurate.  Such instances affect your assessment of group composition.  (If response data look fine, you can set these fields to “unknown” if you prefer not to delete the data.)

Do You Have Enough Respondents?

If you’ve followed the guidelines above, you can get away with having as few as 100 respondents in your norm group (see Tett et al., 2009) – but no fewer.  In fact, for specialised custom norms, there is almost no advantage to having a norm group with more than 300 respondents.

Using the Norm Correctly

Once you’ve got the right norm group, GeneSys can do the work of mathematically pulling the norm together.  The key thereafter is to use the norm appropriately.  Specialised custom norms should only be used for appropriate respondents.  For example, a norm for avionics engineers should only be applied to avionics engineers, not medical practitioners.  Remember: the purpose of a custom norm is to make more meaningful comparisons within a group you’re familiar with!

References

Kline, P. (1993).  The handbook of psychological testing.  New York: Routledge.

Tett, R. P., Fitzke, J. R., Wadlington, P. L., Davies, S. A., Anderson, M. G., & Foster, J. (2009).  The use of personality test norms in work settings: Effects of sample size and relevance.  Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82, 639-659.

The new solutions range of products remove some of the barriers that prevent many HR professionals and decision makers from using psychometric assessments:

• They allow decision makers access to assessments without the need for extensive training in psychological testing principles.
• They reduce the workload of having to conduct a job analysis, identify the appropriate tests and interpret the results in light of the job requirements.
• They cater to specific assessment needs and provide practical and easy to use reports.
• They have been constructed using a valid and reliable library of Psychometric tests.
• They offer users the flexibility of online unsupervised administration.
• They can be easily customised to client specific needs.

Solutions will have three main categories of reports, in addition to a feedback report:

Development

Development reports use respondents’ profile results to investigate the likelihood they may exhibit certain types of work related behaviour. Decision makers can use these reports as a tool to facilitate personal development. They can be used as a starting point either:

• To explore possible development needs with respondents, and produce a shared development strategy for promoting their competence in those dimensions that are work relevant, or
• To consider reasons for any possible discrepancies between their predicted behaviour and their actual performance as assessed by peer ratings, performance appraisals, etc.

These reports provide respondents with the opportunity for self-reflection and self-development. HR professionals and decision makers are encouraged to work with respondents to define development goals based on the results of the profile. The reports highlight areas of concern and provide development recommendations under a standard development process/framework.

Guidance

Guidance reports help HR professionals and counsellors gain a better understanding of what really matters personally to respondents. In addition to providing career advice and recommendations, the reports also provide a framework for career planning and decision making.

Selection

Selection reports provide HR professionals and decision makers with behavioural interview guides catered to respondents’ profiles. The interview model used in these reports follows the STAR behavioural interviewing method in which evidence must be gained to indicate the context of the behaviour, the nature of the behaviour and the consequences of the behaviour.

STAR is an acronym for:

Situation: What was the context of the behaviour?

Task: What needed to be achieved?

Action: What behaviour resulted from the situation?

Result: What was the outcome?

Scoring forms are provided as part of the interview guide. Interviewers are encouraged to use the forms to take notes and are advised to score responses using a given 5-point scale.

Solutions will be available on the new release of GeneSys online as a separate product category. Access will be available to all current users, though distributors will have the option of bringing in new clients whom have not had any training in Psychometrics on special “solutions” accounts. These accounts will only have access to solutions and 360. They will not have access to our standard range of tests and reports.

Solutions are presented in the following categories:

General Solutions

• Competency Focused Personality Assessment (available on release)
• Supporting Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace (available on release)

Role Based Solutions

• Sales Roles: Selection and Development (available on release)
• Customer Service Roles: Selection and Development (available soon)
• Global Leadership Roles: Selection and Development (available soon)

Screening Solutions

• Assessment of Workplace Integrity (available soon)
• Identification of Management Derailers (available on release)
• General Ability Screening / General Ability Verification  (available soon)

Self-Awareness and Team Development Solutions

• Fostering Personal Awareness and Development Using the Jung Types Indicator (available soon)
• Building Teams Using Team Role Theory (available soon)
• Conflict Management (available soon)

Career Guidance Solutions

• Career Guidance (for students) (available soon)
• Career Guidance (for job seekers) (available soon)

Industry Specific Solutions

• Assessment of Health and Safety Attitudes (available on release)

What are Tags?

Tags are essentially labels that can be attached to one or more respondents. These labels can have any text written on them, from the respondents’ organisation, the nature of the recruitment, comments of the assessment process, the assessment center they were part of. The list is endless. Once used, a tag is then always available to be attached to another respondents in the future.

Tags are searchable

All tags are indexed within the system, meaning that they can then be used to instantly filter respondents using the live search tools Psytech GeneSys offers. This means it’s as simple as typing the first few letters of the tag in the search field to start getting a meaningful filtered respondent data. Tags can also be used with logical searches where you wish to find respondent data for people with Tag1 AND Tag2, or people with Tag1 OR Tag2.

Why would you Tag?

Tagging is easy. Once your data is tagged you can find you data in seconds, easily find specific respondents and use them to create an ideal profile, or form large sets of data that you can then use to build your own norm.

To Tag or to Group?

Groups within Psytech GeneSys are temporary structures allowing you to form collections of respondents. A group could be made, for example, for an assessment center day where you wish to perform a Managed Group assessment to all respondents within the group. Once that assessment center is complete the group becomes redundant and can be deleted at any time without the loss of data.

Tags are however persistent, linked to the respondent whenever they are used within GeneSys allowing you to keep a permanent, filterable record of the assessment center, shared property or other activity.

How do you Tag?

Select one or more respondents, and then click the Tag. Type in the tags label and press OK.

That’s it.

If you already have tags, they will all be available to use instead of typing them again.

If you want to remove a tag from one or more respondents it’s just as easy. Select the respondents, click the Tag, and select the ones you want to remove and press OK.

Live Search

The search tools within the Psytech GeneSys system all offer Live Search. This means that GeneSys is already looking for suitable results from within your dataset as soon as you start typing the first letter of your query, and it will then continue to refine the results live onscreen with each additional character entered into the search field.

This means that GeneSys has often found the record you are looking for, before you have finished typing your search query.

Cross Data Filtering

When GeneSys searches it’s not just looking at one field within your dataset, Email address for example. Instead it looks at all fields at once, making searches even simpler. This means that you don’t even need to know all the details you are searching for, because GeneSys is searching in every single field offering you live results based on what you have typed so far.

Filtering by Tags

Tags are easy to use personalised labels you can append to any record. Tags can say anything, and record any information about one respondent or thousands. Tags are also indexed by GeneSys meaning that they can also be used for faster filtering of groups. For example you may tag a group of respondent by their company. Then instead of searching for each respondent individually, you simple need to search for the company itself.

Logical Filters

Logical filters allow you to refine you queries further. This offers you the ability to combine searches with AND/OR statements. Again giving you live, instant results.

For example, you could use a filter to search for people who have completed “15FQ+ AND JTI” or you could use “15FQ+ AND Company X” to give you filtered results for all people who have completed the “15FQ+” AND are employees of “Company X”.

You can also use OR statements, such as “15FQ+ OR JTI” which will return all results in your system that have completed 15FQ+ OR JTI, but not necessarily both together.

[All information in this blog post is available for download from the link above.]

Accounts & Account Structures

In previous versions of Psytech GeneSys accounts were treated as single elements within the system. This means that one account would contain only one user. The system was linear  meaning that users would move from creating sessions, to adding and testing respondents in those sessions, to generating reports from those respondents.

Data within an account was therefore limited to only one account even if the user had colleagues within the same organisation who required access to the same respondent. Similarly respondents could only be in one session at a time meaning that duplication across sessions was common.

In the new Psytech GeneSys system the account structure has been revised to an organisational hierarchy. Meaning that organisations are the top level of the account structure with an unlimited number of users within the organisation. A master user is assigned for all accounts. This master user is assigned a higher level of privileges over all other users within the system.

As a cloud based system this structure means that all data within the system is accessible at all times for all users throughout the account. This means for example, that when it comes to building organisation specific norms all data is available to the master user to create the norm, and then provide the norm to all of the other users for their future testing.

Data Management Concepts

As already mentioned, in the previous system each respondent existed within a session however the same respondent could not appear in other sessions without duplication the record. These duplicated records were then treated as completely separate results with no link between the data.

Now however in the new Psytech GeneSys system we focus entirely on the respondent. A respondent becomes unique within the account structure with all past data linked to their record. Meaning that you have access to all the respondent test history in one record.

Groups

A new Groups feature offers additional flexibility allowing you to structure your respondents. Respondents can appear in multiple groups, or none at all. Groups can also be used as temporary structures to allow you to filter a set of respondents for a certain event, after which the group is no longer required, so can be removed without the loss of data.

Tags

Tags are one of the most important features within the Psytech GeneSys system. They give you a tool that can be used to help you personalise the structure of your data, making things like finding single respondents from within thousands simple, or for forming large data sets from respondent records that all have linked references with just a simple search. Tagging respondents is the most effective way within GeneSys to link multiple respondents with shared properties together across your dataset.

Tags are essentially labels that can be attached to one or more respondents. These labels can have any text written on them, from the respondents’ organisation, the nature of the recruitment, comments of the assessment process, the assessment center they were part of. The list is endless. Once used, a tag is then always available to be attached to another respondents in the future.

All tags are indexed within the system, meaning that they can then be used to instantly filter respondents using the live search tools Psytech GeneSys offers. This means it’s as simple as typing the first few letters of the tag in the search field to start getting a meaningful filtered respondent data. Tags can also be used with logical searches where you wish to find respondent data for people with Tag1 AND Tag2, or people with Tag1 OR Tag2.

Live Search Filters

Finding data quickly and accurately is a key fundamental requirement when managing large data sets. Psytech GeneSys offers this with its live instant filtering tools that are available in virtually all areas of the system.

The search tools within the Psytech GeneSys system all offer Live Search. This means that GeneSys is already looking for suitable results from within your dataset as soon as you start typing the first letter of your query, and it will then continue to refine the results live onscreen with each additional character entered into the search field.

This means that GeneSys has often found the record you are looking for, before you have finished typing your search query.

Commercial Issues

A new cost model within Psytech GeneSys offers a different pricing structure for reports. This new model offers many advantages over the old pay-per-report model resulting in savings to the user and greater selection.

All testing activity, such as adding respondents, sending invitations or testing locally are all free within Psytech GeneSys. The only point of payment is at the time of requesting reports for a completed assessment.

Psytech GeneSys operates on a pre-purchased credit based system. Credits are therefore deducted at the point of report requests.

Report Sets

The new Report Set cost model offers huge advantages over the old pay-per-report model.

Psytech now bundle reports for an assessment into a Set, and this set is given a credit price. When scoring a respondent result you are offered the entire set of reports for one price and you are free to choose which of the reports you want from within the set.

Additionally, once you have scored an assessment for a respondent and paid for the set then that scored set is free in the future. You can re-request previously generated reports or select new reports from the set you have previously not used all for free.

The new Psytech GeneSys Online system will offer a range of powerful new features, offering  increased flexibility and enhanced control over your respondents and their data, while  maintaining the user friendliness of the previous version.

Upgrading to the new system will be a simple, automatic process. All your user details, credits and respondent data will be transferred over on the day of the region release date.

Some of the features available in the new system will be: **

• A new and improved user interface:
  With an emphasis on ease of use, speed of delivery and large scale control we have completely overhauled the existing GeneSys Online system, re-building it from the ground up using some of the latest online technologies.
• Improved Respondent/Data Management:
  The new system focuses on respondents rather than sessions and all data for a given respondent is held in one place rather than across multiple sessions.  This enables rapid access to all results and reports for specific respondents.

  New grouping features make it easy to create ‘Groups’ of respondents, with respondents appearing in one or more groups depending on the group criteria. Groups are simple to create by using the drag and drop features in the system.

  A new search/filter system gives you fast and easy searches to help you find the specific data you need. With the ability to perform instant searches on thousands of records using simple keyword searches (e.g. Family Name, Test name, etc.) or more complex searches involving logical operators (e.g. 15FQ+ or OPP).

• Report sets:
  The new system introduces a new method of paying for reports which involves report sets. A report set is a group of reports for a given assessment which are purchased together.  After purchasing a report set for a given respondent users have unlimited access to all the component reports for that respondent – there will be no charges for re-requesting reports at a later date.
• Improved Customisation:
  New WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) controls in email templates give you the ability to customise email invitations with the click of a button.
• Ideal Profiling:
  An all new Ideal Profiling system has been added to the system that will allow you to easily specify a profile, either manually or using existing respondent data. You will then be able to use that profile when requesting reports to compare each respondent to the ideal.
• Norms:
  Use your own data to build personal/company specific custom norms. You can then use those norms when generating your reports.  In addition, the new system will allow you to see histogram charts and sten/stanine tables for your custom norms.
• 360 Degree:
  The 360 module interface has been enhanced to support very large scale projects. Users now have access to 360 project overviews which give full progress details for all SELF sessions at a single glance.
• Notification system:
  A new notification system has been integrated directly into the main system to give you a fast and easy way to see precisely what has happened in your account while you have not been logged in.This includes notifications on results received, reports generated, etc.
• New Account Structure:
  The new system introduces a more flexible account structure with single corporate level accounts linked to multiple users. All users under a corporate account can easily share norms, batteries, credits etc.
• Psytech Solutions:
  A new side to the GeneSys Online system, offering a new approach to accessing and using psychometrics giving all users access to targeted solution assessments with their own solution reports. ***

*Full details of release dates to follow shortly.
** As of the initial release date. More coming soon
*** More information to follow, as well as a full list of solutions that will be available at launch.

This month Psytech have responded to a total of 61 tickets from different countries that were submitted to our support site between 1^st August and 31^st August.

Response Times

86% within 2 hours.

11% between 2 and 6 hours.

2% between 6 and 24 hours.

1% greater than 1 day.

Average Response Time       3.3 Hours

Min Response Time                0.08 Hour

Max Response Time               21.1 Hours

Ticket solving time

Average solving time           11.6 Hours

Min solving time                   0.12 Hour

Max solving time                   89 Hours

Number of replies                 206 Replies

Average Replies / Day          7 Replies/Day

Min Replies / Day                  2 Replies/Day

Max Replies / Day                 20 Replies/Day

Psytech Technical Support is operational 21 hours per day during normal working days.

This month Psytech have responded to a total of 65 tickets from different countries that were submitted to our support site between 1^st July and 31^st July.

Response Times

89% within 2 hours.

9% between 2 and 6 hours.

1% between 6 and 24 hours.

1% greater than 1 day.

Average Response Time       3.8 Hours

Min Response Time                0.34 Hour

Max Response Time               19.5 Hours

Ticket solving time

Average solving time           10.3 Hours

Min solving time                   0.04 Hour

Max solving time                   87 Hours

Number of replies                 220 Replies

Average Replies / Day          9 Replies/Day

Min Replies / Day                  1 Replies/Day

Max Replies / Day                 32 Replies/Day

Psytech Technical Support is operational 21 hours per day during normal working days.