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Wednesday, 23 December 2009

One reason why I don't have much time for psychometric questionnaires

I'm just looking at a document which has some questions on it that look a bit like psychometric woo to me. To be fair, it might not be an actual psychometric test but it seems that the format of the questions is similar, in that the questionnaire is full of unanswerable, illogical, overly specific questions.

" 1. I often criticise myself for failing to reach my own high standards."

If you always exceed your high standards do you answer 'no' because you don't, or don't need to, criticise yourself? How would the marker distinguish that answer from someone who routinely fails to reach their own high standards but doesn't criticise themselves, or does so less frequently?

Worse, what if the standards I set myself are really, really low and should be a lot higher? Perhaps I'm incompetent but don't know it.

"4. I dislike being interrupted."

Sometimes I do, if a deadline's looming and I'm focusing on something that requires full attention. Sometimes a break might be welcome, or even rcommended. Where is my "it depends" column?

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