Clifton Strengths Finder free essay sample

In many cases, people find it difficult to label or categorize their natural talent. Because one is unaware of their natural talents, he or she experiences. During Gallup’s research on identifying talents, they discovered Throughout the course of Clifton’s work on studying talents, they discovered that the majority of people do not have careers that purse their natural talents (Rath, 2007). Out of 10 million people they surveyed, 7 million people were not engaged at work. When these individuals were not able to use their strengths they reported to dread going to work, have more negative than positive interactions with colleagues, treat customers poorly, tell friends what a miserable company they work for, achieve less on a daily basis, and have fewer positive, creative moments in the workplace (2007). To fix these problems, Clifton created a measuring tool in 1999 to categorize and identify talents. First, Clifton wanted to base his research on what is right with people instead of one’s weakness. We will write a custom essay sample on Clifton Strengths Finder or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Based upon previous tests, Clifton started studying work environments and how measuring one’s raw talents could be developed into strengths. He states that a talent is a â€Å"naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied† (Harter, Hodges amp; Lopez, 2005). Next, he states that strength is an extension of a talent. In other words, if one has the gift of communicating well, then with practice, he can develop his talent for talking into a personal strength such as public speaking. Due to Clifton’s belief of studying talents in individuals, he worked with Gallup to start construct the strengths finder. Gallup an organization known for its research on employee selection. To identify these talents, Clifton worked with Gallup to design interviews that were given to people in academic and work settings. The interviewed looked at the roles a person had at their job or academic setting and asked them questions about how successful they felt at work. More than two million people participated during the interview process (Harter, Hodges amp; Lopez, 2005). While identifying common talents and strengths in these settings, Clifton created categories to place them in. These categories are known as themes. Clifton and his team established 34 themes in total. The themes represent a classification of talents. Even though the themes does not capture every aspect of human talent, it is used as an easy way to generate a category. Each theme shares a personalized description based upon the how the respondent answered the questions. For instance, in the futuristic category, a general description reads, â€Å"When the present proves too frustrating and the people around you too pragmatic, you conjure up your visions of the future and they energize you† (Rath, 2007). This is a general sentence that people get who scored high in the futuristic category. When I took the test, I might be the only one who receives the following sentence, â€Å"Its likely that you may intentionally take charge of your future. You might be determined to shape it as you wish (2007). Both the personalized and generalized descriptions are about a paragraph or two in length. The results support the test’s purpose of identifying personal development in work and academic settings, and not for employment selection, placement, or screening for mental health (Schreiner, 2006) The Clifton Strengths Finder is an online assessment that takes about 30 to 45 minutes to complete. There are 180 self-descriptor items that are paired together and participants have to answer at 20-second time intervals (Anderson, Clifton amp; Schreiner, 2006). The items can either be two simple sentences paired together or two complex sentences paired together. One item would appear on the far left side of the screen and the other item will appear on the far right side of the screen. The participant will see five circles on the screen and will have to click on the circle that mostly relates to their talent. For example, one might see an item pair that reads, â€Å"I am Zesty† on the left side and â€Å"I am boring† on the right side. The participant will have to select a circle on the left or right side that relates to his talent. If the participant cannot relate to either of those items, then one has the option of selecting the middle circle which reads as, â€Å"neutral. Gallup and Clifton decided to present the paired items at 20-second time intervals because it generates a, â€Å"first reaction† (Rath, 2007). According to Gallup’s analysts, one’s first reaction to a question is more honest and true. Thinking too much on a question may cause doubt and will alter test scores. The current normed populati on for CSF are college students because identifying one’s talent in college will create a more positive and productive environment in the workforce (2007). To test the current normed population, Gallup’s researchers conducted a national study in 2004-05 to reveal the CSF’s reliability and validity. Students from five community colleges and nine universities participated in the study. The sample consisted of 438 college students and 58% were female while 46% were male. The sample had the following ethnicities represented: 76% Caucasian 13. 6% Asian, 5% Hispanic, 4. 3% African-American, and 1. 2% multiethnic. The majority of sample was comprised of freshmen and sophomore. Freshman represented 46%, with sophomores at 31. 5%, juniors 8. 7%, and seniors 10. 8% (Schreiner, 2006). The students had to complete three online instruments which included the CSF, the California Psychological Inventory and the 16PF. The last two instruments were tested because their content related to the theme categories of the CSF. Both tests are also reliable measures of personality and the 16PF contains Holland’s six vocational types (2006). The study consisted of two phases. After taking the three instruments, students returned a month later in order to complete the CSF again. The results from the two trials determined the reliability and validity of the test. With reliability the researchers used test-retest reliability and internal consistency. Since the students had to come back a second time to take the test, test-retest reliability assessed how stable their responses was over time. A score of 1. 00 would reveal that students who took the CSF responded exactly the same. Across the 34 themes the mean for the test-retest reliability was . 70. The themes with the highest test-retest reliability were Discipline, Deliberative, Intellection, Positivity, and Competition (Schreiner, 2006). Through reliability, research has also found that 52% of the sample had scored the same three themes of the five themes from taking the test twice. Only 35% scored the same two themes over time, while 11% retained only one of their top five themes. A small 2% scored completely different themes from taking the CSF twice (2006). Internal consistency scored ranged from . 63 to . 80 being the highest among the 34 themes. This reliability assessment measured how accurate each theme identified the correct items it was measuring (2006). For example. If a item on the Achievement theme scale measures strong need for achievement, then the internal consistency will be high. The validity used for the CSF was construct validity. Construct validity reveals how well items describe people. Since the CSF does not predict future behavior and responses are not based on accuracy, construct validity was appropriate for this test. Because the themes were based off the California and 16PF, 93. 4% of the themes had significant correlation coefficients (2006). In the end the CSF presented some strengths and weaknesses. Gallup researchers have found that strength-based interventions increased a student’s retention, performance, self-efficacy, confidence, and purpose in academic and work settings. One weaknesses is that the CSF contains over 200,000 unique combinations that represent themes (Rath, 2007). Some items in these combinations are represented more than others, so if someone does not answer a particular amount of item pairs, then he or she will not be in that category. Another weaknesses is that the theme descriptions and the 180 item pairs been the same since 1999 (2007). The statements that participants see to answer about their talents may not be up to date with today’s language. Also, when long statements are given on the online assessment, one may not have enough time to read it and this will alter the result.