ETS Introduces New Assessment of Inter- and Intrapersonal Skills

After 15 years of research and a yearlong pilot with 16 graduate, business and law schools, ETS is proud to launch the ETS® Personal Skills and Qualities (PSQ) assessment. It’s a quick, easy way to gather and consider evidence of the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills essential for education and career success. And it can validate — in a consistent, more objective way — the information you’re already gathering through personal statements, letters of recommendation and interviews. In addition, PSQ is fake-resistant, easy to manage, and fair for all, including those from underrepresented and marginalized groups. Combined with information about cognitive and critical thinking skills gleaned from GPAs, transcripts and test scores, this new tool is just the ingredient you need to round out your holistic approach to admissions and admit a balanced class.

The PSQ assessment aligns to the Big Five Factors of Personality: Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness, Agreeableness and Positive Emotionality. But unlike other

measures of such skills, it also measures 14 individual skill dimensions that ladder up to the Big Five, including:

·     l    Perseverance

·     l    Leadership

·     l    Resiliency

·     l    Creativity

·     l    Collaboration

·     l    Responsibility

·     l    Self-discipline

·     l    Curiosity

·     l    Even-temperedness

·     l    Sociability

·     l    Organization

·     l    Trust

·     l    Abidance

·     l    Artistic Appreciation

Also, unlike traditional assessments of inter- and intrapersonal skills — which rely on self-reporting, typically on a Likert scale — the PSQ assessment is designed so that students will be unable to guess which answer makes them sound “best.” The format requires students to choose from three statements of equal appeal which is most like them and which is least like them. The skill dimensions that admissions committees want to see are not at all obvious. 

And the inability to prepare for or game this assessment minimizes the chances of any student having an unfair advantage over another.

PSQ began with a five-year research project with Yale School of Management (SOM). The project confirmed that inter- and intrapersonal skills could predict outcomes that are important to the business school, and since then, Yale has made taking the assessment a requirement of all applicants.

Learn more of the PSQ here: https://www.ets.org/psq/

If you are interested in learning more, contact Jay Kang (jkang@etsglobal.org), Director, Academic Relations.

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