Note: this information is provided to each person who registers interest in one of the Design Projects.
Congratulations
- you have been placed on a shortlist for a place in the Design
Project teams.
Final selection will take place after
you have completed the following assessments. This routine is
our standard assessment of learning preference and personality,
and each participant is provided with a comprehensive explanation
of your individual characteristics.
The Student Preference Questionnaire is a very helpful assessment. It measures ten different aspects of our personality that effect the way we approach learning, which is similar to the way we approach life. Our senses – sight smell touch hearing and taste – are the way we take in all the information our brain processes. The first three aspects in this test give us an idea of the senses - in this case: hearing seeing or touching - we prefer to use most.
The Big Five Personality Test measures five aspects that many employers think are good indicators of the type of person they are considering employing. There are 22 additional questions that are not part of your Big 5 results, but provide researchers with data. The complete test takes about 15 minutes to do. The results are presented as a scale, with your position indicated. |
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The scales are:
Closed-minded / Open to new experience - has to do with our thinking, the way we prefer to either accept or reject new ideas. Indications of a rigid or flexible thinker.
Disorganised / Conscientious - has to do with organisation, the way our mind is ordered, which usually effects the rest of our lives: ‘tidy house/desk/bedroom – tidy mind’ sort of stuff.
Introverted / Extroverted - basically part of our personality or our orientation to other people. Like a scale with shy on one end and outgoing on the other.
Disagreeable / Agreeable - to what extent we go along with others or walk our own road. A bit like a ‘leader or follower’ thing.
Calm-relaxed / Nervous-highly strung - basically our temperament, whether we are laid-back or geared-up.
It is important to stress, these tests give us some idea of where we fit on the various scales; indicating that we tend toward this aspect, or toward the other aspect on the same scale. Either end of the scale is OK at times and for some situations, but may be a problem if we never tended toward the other end at times. |
These aspects of our personality are not necessarily 'good' or 'bad'. For example, an accounting firm would probably value someone who tended toward the closed-minded, conscientious, introverted end of the scales. Whereas a graphic designer would probably favour an open-thinking, disorganised, highly strung, extrovert because very likely they will have great creative ability. |
The third assessment is called the Personality Type Indicator. It looks too simple to be a 'proper' test, with only yes/no answers, but it is a good indicator of a person's temperament. It has four scales:
Judging / Perceiving - our thinking type, based on making judgment from what we know or see, or whether we except all sorts of possibilities.
Thinking / Feeling - whether we favour the thinking, rational, analytical part of our brain or the feeling, emotional, intuitive ‘gut feeling’ approach.
Social / Not Social - social orientation, basically the way we need to have people around us, or whether we're quite happy with our own company.
Extroverted / Introverted - personality dimension, basically the same as the shy or outgoing scale.
Three more things need to be said about these assessments:
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Note: the assessment instruments are not available on this CD.
| Assessment 1: Student Preference |
Assessment 2: Big Five |
Assessment 3: Personality Type Indicator |
