The Development of the Professional Styles Questionnaires
The Saville Consulting Wave ® Professional Styles questionnaires show high reliability and validity. At the bottom of the page are links to our core technical data (reliability, group differences and validity). For more information contact any one of us at the Saville Consulting Wave Development Team.
The Saville Consulting Wave Development Team:
Professor Peter Saville, lead author of the OPQ®; Rab MacIver, former Project Manager of OPQ32 Development Programme; Dr Rainer Kurz, publishes extensively on competency models and their link to self-report measures; Dr Sue Henley, 25 years experience in Assessment, specialising in Executive Selection and Development; Gabrielle Parry, 25 years as a specialist Assessment Practitioner focusing on Selection and Development; Ed Hurst, experienced Assessment Practitioner; Katie Mariscal, Anna Mitchener, Stephan Becker, Marie Blakesley and Sarah Mclellan.
The IT Platform development team led by Kieron O'Connor specialises in the development of innovative assessment platforms.
The development of the Professional Styles questionnaires includes the deployment of a Validation Centric methodology. 428 separate work constructs were identified, reviewed and refined by a team of Assessment Specialists and 10 items were written to measure each construct leading to a bank of over 4000 items. These constructs included measures of self-perceived talent and underlying motives. 428 of the items were piloted in the development trial. The items were reviewed in 50 countries to ensure international applicability.
External raters gave independent ratings of work effectiveness against a performance model matched to the work constructs. Item selection was based on the validity of item pairs (alongside other item characteristics) in the development sample. i.e. the more valid work constructs were selected to ensure that the questionnaires have exceptionally strong validity.
At the Standardisation Stage, two parallel forms of the Professional Styles questionnaire were developed to ensure there is a secure form (Supervised Access), providing the reassurance of a backup to the less secure internet delivered form (Invited Access).
216 normative items were then standardised for each of the two forms in a unique 'ra-ra' format where the ranks were calculated based on the normative responses to a block of 6 items. Where items were given the same score within a block, the questionnaire dynamically presents the tied items and asks the respondents to identify the item which is most like them and the item which is least like them. Again, external ratings of work performance were collected.
The Professional Styles model is hierarchical and aligns to the Big Five giving scores at the Cluster (4 scales), Section (12 scales) and Dimension Level (36 scales).
We will be giving regular updates on our website giving more information and results from our extensive international research.
Technical Information: