Introduction to the 15FQ™

The 15FQ™ is a personality test which has been developed for use in industrial and organisational settings. The test was developed in the UK on a large sample of applicants drawn from a wide range of occupational groups. Thus the 15FQ™ is particularly appropriate for use in personnel assessment and selection in the UK. The 15FQ™ measures fifteen different personality dimensions in addition to the distortion or social desirability scale. The personality characteristics measured by the 15FQ™ have been selected for two reasons. Firstly, for their relevance to personnel assessment and selection decisions, and secondly, because extensive research evidence demonstrates their validity. Thus the test user can be confident that the 15FQ™ measures meaningful and useful aspects of the candidate's personality.

The personality scales measured by the 15FQ™ have been designed to be as short as possible while at the same time achieving a high level of reliability and construct validity. In general these two demands run counter to each other in that the more items a test contains the more reliable that test will usually be. In addition the more varied the test items are the more likely it is that the test will be measuring broad personality constructs. However, if items are fairly varied, and thus measure broad constructs, more items are typically required for the test to reach acceptable levels of reliability, than if the items are very similar to each other. Thus there is a need to balance the length of a test against the need for it to be valid and reliable. The 15FQ™ attempts to achieve an optimal balance between these two conflicting demands, seeking to be short and reliable, yet measure broad, meaningful personality constructs.