Quintax®Personality Questionnaire
Quintax®
Personality Questionnaire
This information is intended to:
• explain what to expect when completing the questionnaire
• explain what feedback you might be given
• give you advice on how to prepare
Quintax is a ‘personality questionnaire’ which is used to help select and develop people in the world of work. Quintax also provides worthwhile information for people engaged in full or part time study at college or university, and for those engaged in job search. . You may be meeting it as a paper questionnaire, or on-line via the Internet. Either way, it is only available to authorised users who have been trained in the professional and ethical use of personality questionnaires, and who agree to a strict set of ‘terms of supply’ set out by SR&A, the publishers of Quintax.
A personality questionnaire helps us to gain information about a person’s typical preferences and ways of behaving. While much of this information can be obtained by other means, personality questionnaires have the advantage of being quick to complete and score, and more accurate and objective than some of the other methods that people have used to select and develop people in the workplace.
Gathering more accurate and complete information about people helps us to make fairer and more unbiased decisions. It also helps to ensure that people gain satisfaction from the work they do, and gain sound advice on how to develop their approach to work given their basic preferences. Of course ‘personality’ isn’t just to do with work. The output from Quintax may also help to illuminate your personal preferences outside the work environment. Despite this, the main focus of the questionnaire is your behaviour at work, rather than how you act outside of the work context.
What to expect when completing the questionnaire
Quintax is a questionnaire with 72 questions about your typical preferences and behaviour at work. It was developed by Stuart Robertson & Associates and takes around 15 to 20 minutes to complete.
The questionnaire is administered using ‘standardised’ instructions which are intended to be the same for all those completing the questionnaire, whatever the organisation or setting in which the assessment takes place. This helps to ensure fairness across different people. You will be asked to give your first response to each of the questions, and not to ponder too long on any one answer. This tends to give more accurate and clear cut results. If you are completing Quintax in its ‘paper and pencil’ form, you will find that the questions are included in a reusable booklet, and you will be asked to put your answers on a separate answer sheet. If you are completing on a standalone PC or via the Web, the questions will be presented in turn on screen and your responses will be recorded from the keyboard.
To answer a question you have to decide whether you agree or disagree with the statement on which it is based. To show this, you will have to select one of the following options for each question: strongly agree, agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree. The statements look like this:
1 I always prefer to consult with other team members before making a decision at work.
2 I prefer practical approaches to things, rather than a lot of theory.
3 If I am annoyed with a person, I usually tell them.
As there is no time limit, people tend to finish at different times. When completing Quintax in a group situation you should sit quietly after finishing, so as not to distract other people. All of these details will be explained again during the administration process. You should also take the opportunity to raise any queries you may have about the assessment process, administration, feedback etc. with the person asking you to complete Quintax prior to starting the questionnaire. The person using Quintax for your assessment should also agree with you what will happen to the results, and give you relevant and clear assurances about confidentiality.
In some assessment situations you may also have been asked for other information, such as the ethnic group that you identify yourself as belonging to. This data is collected purely for research use to ensure that Quintax is not discriminating unfairly between people from different backgrounds. Although you are not required to answer such a question if you don’t wish to, it has no impact upon the interpretation of your results as the information you provide is not used for individual comparisons.
What feedback you might be given
The results of the questionnaire may be presented to you in a written report and/or in a face-to-face ‘oral’ feedback.
Quintax has various forms of written feedback. One of these includes a ‘Record Form’ showing your main results, together with a ‘Type Descriptor Leaflet’. The leaflet is intended to help describe your behaviour using a holistic description of your ‘type’ based on your Quintax results. Another form of written feedback includes a more extended narrative report based on the strength of preference you have for different types of behaviour as measured through Quintax. Further forms of feedback deal with your ‘learning style’ as inferred from Quintax, and also with your problem solving or ‘creative style’. You are likely to receive one or other of these after having completed the questionnaire. These are all intended to help you to understand your preferences and how they affect your behaviour at work. Having this understanding can be useful if you want to develop new ways of approaching situations and tasks in the future.
Oral feedback on the Quintax results may be given to you. If this happens you will be given a chance to comment on your scores and Quintax type, and possibly to discuss the implications for the way you approach work, study, or job search.
As Quintax is a questionnaire and not a test, there is no need to do anything special to prepare. However, it is helpful to read this information carefully so you know what to expect on the day. Remember that you can ask any questions you need to before the administration occurs. If you are visiting an organisation to take Quintax, then simple and sensible advice is try to ensure you get a good night’s sleep before you attend and that you arrive on time, so as to be fresh rather than tired and flustered.
If you are completing Quintax On-line, make sure that you leave time before completion to discuss any queries you have with the person asking you to complete Quintax. You may be able to do this directly, or you may need to discuss any queries by telephone or email exchange. If you are reading this on the Quintax On-line website, you will find that you can enter your Access Code and read the instructions in order to see if you have any queries. However, once you start the questionnaire you will not be able to break its completion over more than one session without losing your initial responses. As a result, when completing Quintax On-line, you should ensure you do this in a quiet environment free from distraction, and with enough time to complete the questionnaire once you have begun to answer the questions.
Above all remember that we are all individuals, and that there are no right or wrong answers to a questionnaire such as Quintax. What identifies us as individuals is the combination of preferences we have. If you complete Quintax in an open and frank manner you will find it reflects these preferences accurately and will provide valuable insights into your own and other people’s behaviour in the world of work.
Quintax is a registered trademark. Quintax is published exclusively by Stuart Robertson & Associates Ltd, Empress Buildings, 380 Chester Road, Manchester, M16 9EA (Tel: +44 (0)161 877 3277; www.sr-associates.com).