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Subject:RE: Another bogus personality test From:"Dan Goldstein" <DGoldstein -at- riveraintech -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:47:55 -0400
I understand why you might *want* those specific emotional reactions.
But the test is intended to accurately describe a third person (i.e.,
not the questioner and not the responder). What do you do if that third
person never gets frustrated or impatient? Do you just make up a false
answer to satisfy the test?
-----Original Message-----
From: Lauren
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 4:43 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Another bogus personality test
On 10/22/2012 1:19 PM, Dan Goldstein wrote:
> If a person tends to be calm and unemotional under stress, then
> selecting any of the four choices below isn't "taking a side." It's
> just giving a wrong answer. But I think you're suggesting that the
> test was badly designed, and we certainly agree on that!
Quite the contrary, I think the test was very well-designed to measure a
range of people for a range of preferences in work style.
If your company manufactures precision instruments or incendiary
devices, then you will definitely want someone who becomes "very
frustrated when things move too quickly" while you definitely want to
avoid someone who gets "very impatient when things move too slowly."
If you are staffing assembly line work or any position that has quotas,
but still maintains quality control, then you will probably want someone
who is "somewhat impatient when things move too slowly," but definitely
not someone with any aversion when "things move too quickly."
A person in a management position should probably be "very impatient
when things move too slowly."
Developers should probably be "somewhat frustrated when things move too
quickly," yet other questions in the test should determine levels of
tolerance for frustration.
A technical writer who must coordinate meetings around the schedules of
others should probably never select an answer with "impatient," since
patience is necessary skill in that circumstance.
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