Psychology

Report on the Evaluation of the OPPro Test

Name of Test Occupational Personality Profile (OPPro)

Scenario This test would be considered for use through the forthcoming recruitment session for sales staff at our organization.

Introduction
As interviews, resumes and references do not always shed sufficient light on whether or not an individual would perform well in the organizational setting, given his or her job description, psychometric tests are considered reliable predictors of job performance.  Personality tests are particularly helpful in the recruitment of sales staff.  These tests measure various aspects of personality characteristics, allowing the organization to evaluate whether its selection of sales personnel would appropriately represent the organization to its customers.

OPPro is a personality test developed in the United Kingdom for organizational and industrial needs. The test measures personality traits that are especially relevant to personnel selection.  In the following sections of this report, I would evaluate whether or not OPPro should be used by our organization for recruitment of sales personnel.

Suitability of the Items
The OPPro is a relativity short personality test measuring nine bipolar personality dimensions, that is, optimism versus pessimism, etc., plus the distortion scale.  All items on the test relate to personality characteristics that scientific research has shown to be valid in the context of personnel selection.

According to the technical manual for the OPPro, the developers of the test have ensured that items on the test can be generalized across cultures.  Moreover, the items are gender neutral and do not correlate highly with the scale for social desirability, lest test takers are urged to distort their results.  

Reliability
As the following discussion reveals, the OPPro is, indeed, a reliable test that our organization may use with confidence.

Cronbachs Alpha or Internal Consistency Reliabilities These were calculated for the personality test using samples of males and females, males only, and females only.  The results revealed that all dimensions of the OPPro have reliability coefficients over 0.6, regardless of gender.  Hence, the test meets an acceptable standard of reliability, unlike the 16PF, various factors of which are considered very unreliable.  In fact, OPPro compares rather favorably with OPQ as well in this respect.

Test-Retest Reliability To check test-retest reliability of OPPro, the test was examined for two different periods of time -- one month and three months.  As Table 7 in the technical manual for OPPro shows, the test was found to be highly consistent with all coefficients over 0.7 and averaging over 0.8.  Hence, OPPro is believed to provide stable results for at least three months.  To put it another way, the test meets an acceptable standard of test-retest reliability.

Validity
Construct Validity OPPro scores were checked against scores on 13 different personality tests to determine whether personality characteristics measured by Occupational Personality Profile are meaningful in psychological terms.  Personality tests included 16PF Factors, 16PF-5 Factors, 15 FQ Scales, OPQ Factors, and Jung Type Indicator, etc.  Tables 9 to 22 show results of these comparisons to determine construct validity of OPPro.

Because personality dimensions are defined and measured differently on personality tests, keeping the psychological meaningfulness of dimensions intact, the results are mixed.  Let us consider OPPros results in comparison with two important personality tests, the Jung Type Indicator and Eysencks EPQR  17 Scales to further understand the construct validity of the test under scrutiny.

The Relationship Between OPPro and Jung Type Indicator
Ninety-five individuals were chosen to take both OPPro and Jung Type Indicator tests in the contexts of personnel selection and training.  As Table 13 of the technical manual for OPPro indicates, there is good correlation between psychological constructs in the Jung Type Indicator and OPPro.  Some of the most significant relationships exist between the constructs of Gregarious and EI (-0.62), and Pragmatic and SN (-0.66).

The Relationship Between OPPro and Eysencks EPQR and 17 Scales
Using a sample of 158 professionals, the developers of OPPro were able to determine that the test correlates with both EPQR Extraversion and Anxiety Factors and the 17 Empathy factor.  However, there are certain differences in definitions of psychological constructs in OPPro and Eysencks EPQR and 17 Scales.  Furthermore, the OPPro does not measure Psychoticism as well as it is meant to.

Even so, studying the relationships of OPPro with 13 different personality tests  through Tables 9 to 22 in the technical manual of OPPro  reveals that the test is, indeed, correlated with other personality tests.  The fact that some of OPPros dimensions do not correlate with similar dimensions on certain tests does not render it invalid.  The OPPro meets an acceptable standard of construct validity regardless of the fact that personality test developers do not define dimensions on their tests in exactly the same way.

Concurrent Validity Table 23 of OPPros technical manual shows how the dimensions of this test are validated against other tests measuring these dimensions on their own, for example, the Flexible-Detail-Conscious dimension of the OPPro was validated against the Rigidity scale of Cough and Sandford.  Although correlations shown in Table 23 vary from 0.38 to -0.78, overall the OPPro meets an acceptable standard of concurrent validity.

Criterion Validity Tables 24 to 32 in the technical manual summarize relationships between OPPro test results and job performances of a variety of different professionals, including sales personnel.  These relationships were measured on the bases of pilot studies using samples of job incumbents.  As the following two studies reveal, the OPPro meets an acceptable standard of criterion validity.

Department Store Sales Staff
At a London department store, 231 members of the sales staff took the OPPro, using their supervisor appraisal ratings as their overall measure of performance.  As Table 28 of the technical manual reveals, the criterion measure was significantly correlated with three dimensions of the OPPro, that is, Trusting, Phlegmatic and Pessimistic.  Further analysis revealed that these personality dimensions can identify up to 77 of the best performers in sales.

Sales Consultants in the Furnishing Trade
Sixty-nine sales consultants participated in a study conducted for a furniture retail company to identify vital personality dimensions of successful people in sales.  As Table 29 of the technical manual shows, salespeople who are calm, rather practical but not too cynical tend to achieve the greatest number of orders.  The most accommodating and extraverted salespersons, on the other hand, are the best performers in terms of monetary values of sales.

Normative Data
The OPPro was standardized with a sample of more than 1900 adults from the United Kingdom, nearly equally distributed between men and women.  The GeneSys software adds some specialized norm groups to this general population norm.  These groups include sales staff, technical trainees, undergraduates, personnel managers, etc.  The GeneSys software also gives its users the option to establish their own norms for focused norm comparisons with specific group profiles.  

Influences of Gender, Age and Ethnic Origin It was observed through the standardization process that males and females score differently  that is, with differences that are statistically significant  on seven of the ten dimensions of OPPro.  Given that the sample size for each of the groups was over 1000, however, these statistically significant differences were considered virtually meaningless.

It was further observed through the standardization process that individuals in different age groups score differently  that is, with differences that are statistically significant  on seven of the ten dimensions of OPPro.  Seeing that the sample size for all groups was rather large, however, these statistically significant differences are meaningless.

As Tables 2 and 3 reveal, gender differences on the personality dimension named Central Tendency were both statistically significant and meaningful likewise, age differences on the same personality dimension were statistically significant and meaningful.  This was determined using small samples.  Just the same, OPPro cannot be said to yield meaningful, statistically significant gender and age differences as a whole.  

Table 4 of the technical manual shows differences in OPPro results on the basis of ethnic origin.  The means and standard deviations for OPPro results are divided between Blacks, Asians, Others and the Norm.  These figures do not reveal statistically significant differences in test results on the basis of ethnicity.

Practical Considerations
The OPPro is very easy to administer.  The technical manual provides easy-to-understand, detailed instructions for administrators.  Scoring is made simple, thanks to the GeneSys Integrated Assessment Software.  This software can administer OPPro and a related battery of aptitude tests for personnel selection before these tests are scored by the system and results are generated.  It may also accept scores from OPPro answer sheets if the test is used in paper and pencil format.  In both cases, users are provided with selections of interpretative reports in addition to occupational groups as norms.  Apart from reporting scores on the different personality dimensions of OPPro, the GeneSys can provide criterion scores for Hollands career themes and Belbins team-roles.

Conclusion
For all of the reasons described in this report, including the fact that the Occupational Personality Profile (OPPro) is a valid and reliable psychometric test, I highly recommend it as a recruitment tool.  Undoubtedly, interviews, references and resumes should not be used without the OPPro to predict future job performance of sales staff.  Moreover, as the studies to determine criterion validity reveal, the OPPro is very beneficial in the area of sales, as it can help both human resources and sales managers to attract and retain the right people.  As the OPPro is both standardized and easy to administer and score, I believe our sales department may not only save on costs but also increase in profits through its use.  After all, by hiring the right people  based on their OPPro results  are company is expected to gain a competitive edge, too.