Psychometrics in Coaching. Using Psychological and Psychometric Tools for Development.
Passmore, J. (ed.) London: Kogan Page.
UK organisations continue to have great faith in using tests to assess people in the workplace. Recent research by the Test Agency shows that over 70% of companies use them in one way or another. But are organisations using tests well?
Whilst psychometrics (which should consistently measure valid information, and be fair to everyone) have long been used to select staff into the workplace, they are now increasingly used for development. The idea here is that tests diagnose individual strengths and weaknesses, which could then be addressed with activities such as training, team building or coaching, the latter being one of the hottest trends in UK industry.
To date, practitioners have lacked a comprehensive guide to best practice in the area, thus ‘Psychometrics in Coaching’ clearly meets a need. The book consists of 18 chapters. Three of these are general guides to using psychometrics, which outline relevant research and technical terms in user-friendly language to equip readers with a sound base-line understanding.
One of these chapters, Using Feedback in Coaching, was written by a long-standing Mendas collaborator, Dr Almuth McDowall. The chapter discusses why ‘that’s such good feedback’ is an overused but poorly understood catch phrase, and encourages practitioners to develop their feedback style based on sound research.
The remainder of the book is devoted to a chapter each on the most popular psychometric tools, such as the MBTI ®, the OPQ, the ELQTM, Saville Consulting Wave ® and Emotional Intelligence Measures. Written by genuine experts in the field, each of these provides a thorough introduction to a particular tool with focus on practical use in organisations.
Taking together, these chapters are of use to practitioners in organisations as well as to psychologists or coaches, who want to acquire more specialist knowledge in equal measures. It is a credit to the editor that the book combines scientific rigour with accessible language, including a useful glossary for more specialist terms.
Book Review by Almuth McDowall
