Glossary
30 terms used across our research and guides, defined in plain language.
Terms
- Adverse impact
- A substantially lower selection rate for one group than another. US guidelines use a four-fifths (80%) rule of thumb as a first check. Related: Validity, Normative
- Barnum effect
- The tendency to rate vague, general descriptions as personally accurate. Also called the Forer effect. See the guide. Related: Self-report, Validity
- Certification
- A private credential showing competence in administering and interpreting an assessment. It is not a government license. Related: Practitioner License, Institutional License
- Cognitive style
- A person's typical way of taking in, organizing and using information. See cognitive style. Related: Trait, Typology
- Conation
- The part of mind concerned with will, striving and action, alongside cognition and affection. Related: Faculty, Environmental Engagement
- Construct
- The quality a test sets out to measure, such as a preference or a trait. Related: Validity, Trait
- Environmental Engagement
- The ICA dimension for acting directly on what is in front of you. See the construct. Related: Faculty, Conation
- Faculty
- In the ICA, one of three groupings of dimensions: Thinking, Feeling and Willing. Related: Conation, Profile
- Faking
- Answering to create an impression rather than honestly, most common when stakes are high. Related: Social desirability, Forced choice
- Forced choice
- A format where people choose among options rather than rating each one. The ICA offers four responses per situation. Related: Ipsative, Thurstonian IRT
- Institutional License
- An annual agreement for organization-wide professional use of the ICA. See the license. Related: Practitioner License, Certification
- Integrative Synthesis
- The ICA dimension for perceiving patterns and wholes. See the construct. Related: Systematic Analysis, Cognitive style
- Internal consistency
- How closely the items meant to measure the same thing agree with one another. Related: Reliability, Test-retest reliability
- Ipsative
- Scores that describe the order of one person's own preferences. Because they share a fixed total, they should not be compared directly between people. Related: Normative, Forced choice
- Normative
- Scores that compare a person with a reference group, such as a percentile. Related: Ipsative, Norm group
- Norm group
- The reference sample a normative score is compared against. Related: Normative, Adverse impact
- Orientation Strength Index
- The ICA's measure of how evenly or unevenly a person's four dimension scores are spread. Related: Profile, Ipsative
- Practitioner License
- The yearly commercial-use license that lets a certified practitioner use the ICA with clients. See the professional path. Related: Certification, Institutional License
- Preregistration
- Publishing a study's questions, methods and criteria before collecting data. See the ICA protocol. Related: Validity, Reliability
- Profile
- In the ICA, one of 24 orderings of the four dimensions from strongest to weakest. Related: Orientation Strength Index, Typology
- Reliability
- The consistency of a test's results across items, occasions or raters. Related: Test-retest reliability, Internal consistency
- Self-report
- A measure in which people describe themselves, rather than being observed or tested on performance. Related: Social desirability, Faking
- The ICA dimension for perceiving how others feel and keeping connection. See the construct. Related: Faculty, Integrative Synthesis
- The pull to answer in the way that seems most acceptable. Related: Faking, Self-report
- Systematic Analysis
- The ICA dimension for understanding parts and structures. See the construct. Related: Integrative Synthesis, Cognitive style
- Test-retest reliability
- How similar results are when the same people take a test again after an interval. Related: Reliability, Internal consistency
- Thurstonian IRT
- A family of statistical models designed for forced-choice data, which avoid the distortions of ipsative scores. Related: Forced choice, Ipsative
- Trait
- A broad, relatively stable tendency, described as a degree rather than a type. Related: Typology, Cognitive style
- Typology
- A system that sorts people into distinct types. Related: Trait, Profile
- Validity
- The evidence that a test's results mean what is claimed, for a specific use. See the accuracy guide. Related: Reliability, Construct
Keep reading
Are personality tests accurate?How any personality test's accuracy is judged: reliability, the five sources of validity evidence, faking, the Barnum effect, and where the ICA stands.The ICA modelThe ICA model: four dimensions of behavioral preference in three faculties, Thinking, Feeling and Willing, with 24 profiles.Study protocolThe draft ICA study protocol: the three questions, planned samples and analyses, and how support or failure will be judged, set before data is collected.All guidesPlain guides to choosing, judging and using personality and behavioral assessments: accuracy, hiring law, certification costs and team workshops.
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Plain definitions of the terms used in personality and behavioral assessment, from adverse impact and ipsative scores to reliability and validity.