Psychological Measurement Assessment Tools Objective: To enhance understanding of and provide firsthand experience with the assessment tools other than personality inventories and projective techniques – such as Q-sort.
Background: In addition to personality inventories and projective techniques, there exist numerous other kinds of personality assessment instruments; included are measures of interest, attitude, cognitive style, and situational performance. One technique useful in measuring self-concept is the Q-sort.

This technique may take many forms but with specific reference to personality assessment typically entails the sorting of cards with different trait terms printed on them; the individual doing the sorting may be instructed to “Place the cards in an order that you deem to be most characteristic of yourself.” After that sorting has been completed and the order recorded, the sorter may next be instructed, “Now place the cards into an order that you deem to be your ‘ideal self’ – the way you’d ideally like to be.” In a counseling or therapy situation, the nature of the self-versus ideal-self discrepancy may provide useful information in terms of areas that will require intervention.

Psychological Measurement Assessment Tools and Task Requirement

Your Task: In this exercise, you will be the test developer, test administrator, test interpreter, and test taker. Your task is fourfold:
1. Create a Q-sort by writing any ten trait terms on ten index cards, one to a card. Note that, if you have difficulty in thinking of trait terms, you should feel free to glance through the personality assessment chapters in your text and pay particular attention to the tables and figures describing the contents of many of the instruments. In the unlikely event that you still have difficulty coming up with ten trait terms, consult Allport and Odbert (1936).
2. Sort the cards according to how you see yourself today, with the first card in your sorting being most characteristic of yourself and the last card in the sorting being least characteristic of yourself. Make a record of your sorting and then shuffle the deck.
3. Sort the cards according to how you would ideally like to be. Here again, the first card in your sorting should reflect the most prominent characteristic of your ideal self, and card number 10 in your sorting should reflect the least prominent characteristic of your ideal self. Make a record of your sorting.
4. Write an interpretation of your findings that includes, at a minimum, (a) an explanation of any observed self/ideal-self discrepancies and (b) an “action plan” for reducing any such observed discrepancies over the course of the next few years. In your write up, include a listing of the ten traits; a listing of the traits that describes your present self; and a listing of the traits that describes your ideal self. All homework is to be typewritten.