Psychology Consultancy Brief Introduction:

1Rocky

Bay was founded in 1938 by Rotary Clubs in Western Australia to support families of children with disabilities. The organization provides support to over 1,000 children and 500 adults living with disabilities in WA. They aim to constantly challenge and improve the quality and scope of everything they do and will have the right people wanting to work with us, fully engaged in the purpose, vision and values of Rocky Bay. The process for doing so will now be easier due to us, Rocky Bays new partners in business, proposing special testing for candidates for their current available position for an Occupational Therapist working with the disabled. To establish the best quality of intelligence testing, personality testing and attitude testing, we have researched different methods and strategically planned out tests ready to find the perfect occupational therapist for this wonderful and unique organization.

Background:

Personality and aptitude (similar to attitude) in career selection and the workplace 2is one of the most critical and highly relevant areas of psychology today. This is probably why career and vocational assessment continues to grow as a very important area for psychologists involved in education and vocational guidance. Personality testing has been involved in workplace testing since 1854-1908 when Frank Parsons was said t have been the founder of vocational guidance. In 1927, Hollands Self-Directed Search was published, and allowed the user to discover how their pattern of interests, self-estimates, and competencies that many occupations demand, was designed. 3Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) was one of the first people to study intelligence. Galton developed many statistical techniques such as regression and correlation to provide a scientific basis for his studies of heredity and hereditary trends. There were many theories as to what intelligence actually was, and how to measure it which racially discriminated islanders etc. from doing well in the test. However due to the many mistakes in intelligence testing in the past, we have been able to learn the right and wrong things to include in a suitable test for Rocky Bay. 4Aptitude tests have been widely used in business and government for hiring, performance evaluation, and research. There are many kinds of aptitude assessments some of which test special abilities in very demanding and specialized tasks and occupations, such as pilots, flight engineers, and navigators. But many of the aptitude tests currently in use are out of date and there is no specific test for occupational drivers. This paper reports the development of newly developed attitude testing, superb intelligence and personality testing to ensure Rocky Bay, is hiring employees high in quality and suitability.

Intelligence:
5Intelligence

is the global capacity to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment (Wechsler). It is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. An occupational therapist will have the required intelligence for the honored position at Rocky Bay, due to having completed WACE at stages 2 & 3 with at least one science subject to have obtained and completed a course in occupational therapy at a university. However intelligence testing offers the candidates highest types of intelligences such as linguistic and interpersonal intelligences would be very valuable assets to attain working as an occupational therapist at Rocky Bay. Other intelligences could occasionally be used such as music- to entertain, Bodily kinesthetic- to aid the physically disabled, and logical mathematical to scientifically solve and investigate any issues perturbing Rocky Bay clients. There are many ways in which intelligence can be measured, to be of value, intelligence tests must be reliable and give consistent results and have validity. We must remember that scores are not absolute values and are not a measure of someones actual level of intelligence, but instead are an indication of a persons intelligence. The

http://www.rockybay.org.au/go/about-us/vision-and-purpose Nelson Psychology VCE Units1&2 page 290 3 Self, others page 180 4 http://www.iaeng.org/publication/IMECS2011/IMECS2011_pp1322-1326.pdf 5 Nelson Psychology VCE Units 1&2 page
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test that we have chosen to use a test adapted from 6Vialle & Perry (2002, pp. 57-60), which involves answering questions related to each of the 8 multiple intelligences on how regularly you engage in the activities or behaviors using a table identical to the sample below:
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Benefits of 8Vialle and Perrys (2002, pp.57-60) test include the simplicity of the test- so anyone can understand and complete the questions, it is easier for the examiners to interpret and record the answers/data presented by the candidate, and it is not a commonly used intelligence test, so it would be difficult to preempt questions and forge the most adequate answers in the test. Unfortunately, if the candidate does happen to know the ideal personalities and answers when applying at Rocky Bay, the test will now cease to poses constructed validity and contextual validity.

Personality:

Personality is an individuals unique and relatively unchanging psychological characteristics and behaviour patterns; the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character. Personality is not only a very important attribute to consider when in the process of hiring a new staff member because of the types of personality most suited to become an occupational therapist at Rocky Bay, but helps to shape a unique individual. We know that at Rocky Bay, there is not only a fantastic service provided by the team, but a close sense of community within the unique organization which brings the staff and clients together as one; therefor Rocky Bay would benefit from not only having satisfaction of ideal personality characteristics in their new employees, but also an overall idea of the new team member you will be working with and entrusting with the continuous improvement of quality services at Rocky Bay. Unfortunately the personality testing that we offer, may poses negative outcomes in some cases, such as where an employees sensitivity, moods, irritability or adaptability may have been misjudged or incorrectly measured, causing an unexpected exasperation in the new employee. The type of personality measurement that we suggest is Myer Briggs Type Indication (MBTI) the test has in fact 9evolved and been perfected through continual test research and development of ever more accurate question; thus making the experiment even more reliable. The MBIT includes 126 forced-choice questions based on the 8 personality traits. The test is carried out by answering questions, which determine weather you are Extraverted, introverted, intuitive or sensory, a thinker or feeler.
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Nelson Psychology VCE Units 1&2 page 244 Nelson Psychology 1&2 VCE page 244 8 Nelson Psychology 1&2 VCE page 244 9 http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html 10 http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/mmdi/questionnaire/
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More desirable traits for an occupational therapist would include extraversion, intuition, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving. However, what one must remember when analyzing the answers is that just because one trait is present, doesnt mean the other is not (e.g. If someone is a thinker doesnt mean they do not feel). The overall results may help to give one employee a preference over another but should be taken into consideration that the other personalities may still be prevalent.

Attitude:

Another important factor we would like to present to you is the measurement of attitudes for staff selection. 11Attitude is a learned idea about ourselves or others, or objects and experiences; a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person's behavior; long-lasting evaluations we hold about ourselves, other people, objects and issues. Attitudes are an important factor to measure when recruiting a new staff member, there is no point in hiring someone who has an appropriate intelligence level and a nice personality, but has a strong negative viewpoint of people with disabilities. An occupational therapist at Rocky Bay would completely obliterate the point of joining the harmonic team in such a tranquil and unique environment if they possessed such attitudes. However like any other test there is the possibility that the attitude of a potential employee could poses false traits due to poorly constructed validity or just unsuitable validity which are both unlikely factors due to the experiments extensive reliability. The scale we are promoting you to use for attitude testing is the Linkert Scale; a scale used to measure responses to a series of statements about an issue. Our attitudes are positive, negative or neutral and so are said to be in a direction, and also have intensity, (weather we feel strongly or mildly about a particular issue). Linkerts Scale concentrates on all of these things by including the optional responses presented in the table below:

The scale we will use for Rocky Bay, will almost be identical to this one, although the questions are modeled differently to suit the personality of an occupational therapist at Rocky Bay. Some of the attitude outcomes we will be looking for include: Patients, initiative, flexibility, observant, innovative and practical. Questions asked will be related to the disabled, and include questions about stressful or problematic situations to see the true attitude of the potential employee obtainable.

Ethics:

Unfortunately there are some ethics issues we may come across when using our testing methods to hire the most appropriate staff member for your unique organization (although our testing methods have been closely studied and analysed). The individuals, who are completing the tests, must be informed that they are in fact completing a psychological test, and that they are happy to Nelson Psychology page 175

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do so. Some of the ethical issues that may tactlessly effect the process selection process include: issues such as; 12construct validity, generalization, reliability, validity, content validity and cultural bias are potential ethical issues that would have an implausible effect on the outcome of testing for the most suitable staff members. Our aim is to achieve complete reliability and criterion validity; where there is significant positive correlation between test scores and a similar actual performance on task, consistently improving quality services to clients at the everexceptional organization of Rocky Bay.

Conclusion:
We strive to provide our loyal customers, with accurate, reliable, valid, appropriate and exceptional testing methods to ensure the most sufficient staff members are chosen to fill the imperative position of an occupational therapist in the supportive and united environment at Rocky Bay. We aim to work with Rocky Bay and develop with their ever expanding discoveries and reached goals. To support and facilitate the growth of positive testing for fantastic employees to encourage the magnificent environment and objectives that are achieved in the organization throughout many years to come with our innovative personality testing, attitude testing, and intelligence testing.

Bibliography:
Books: Bradley, K., Coon, D., Kendall, K., Koerner, J., Nailer, S., Pringle, R., et al. (2009). Nelson Psychology (2nd ed.). (J. Window, Ed.) not provided: Cengage Learning Australia Pty Limited. Fletcher, J., & Garton, A. (2007). Psychology (Vol. 1). (W. Skilbeck, Ed.) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Pearson Education Australia. Web Article: Chen, A. H. (2011, March 16-18). Driving Aptitude Test (DAT): A New Set of Aptitude Tests for Occupational Drivers. Retrieved April 29, 2011, from Proceedings of The International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists: http://www.iaeng.org/publication/IMECS2001/IMECS2001_PP1322-1326.pdf Websites: Dale Paulson, P. (2008, March 2 ). Using The Workplace Attitudes Test With Existing Employees and The Supervisor Who Was Too Good. Retrieved April 29, 2012, from Workplace Attitudes: http://workplaceattitudes.blogspot.com.au/2008/03/using-workplace-attitudes-test-with.html How to write a Consultancy Brief. (n.d.). Retrieved april 29, 2012, from Institute for Ethical Consulting : http://www.ifec.biz/write-brief.pdf Job Guide 2011. (n.d.). Canberra, ACT, Australia. McLeod, S. (2008). Linkert Scale. Retrieved May 1st, 1012, from Simply Psychology: http://www.simplypsychology.org/linkert-scale.html Personality Type Questionnaire. (1995). Retrieved April 29, 2012, from Team Technology: http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/mmdi/questionaire/ Reinhold, R. (2011). Myers Briggs Test * What is your Myers-Briggs Personality Type? Retrieved 29 April, 2012, from Personality Pathways: http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

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(Reinhold, 2011) (Personality Type Questionnaire, 1995) (McLeod, 2008) (Job Guide 2011) (How to write a Consultancy Brief) (Fletcher & Garton, 2007) (Dale Paulson, 2008) (Chen, 2011) (Bradley, et al., 2009)