Predictive Index

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Introduction

The Predictive Index (PI) is a leading talent software provider, specializing in assessment tools and consulting services designed to maximize workplace productivity and enhance employee engagement. Focusing on talent optimization, PI was founded in 1955 by Arnold S. Daniels who developed the methodology for the Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment. The company's mission centers on empowering organizations to align their talent strategies with business objectives, utilizing scientifically validated assessments to forecast workplace behaviors and facilitate effective decision-making. PI is committed to improving organizational effectiveness through data-driven insights into human behavior, promoting a culture of continuous improvement and innovation in workforce management.

History

In 1942, Arnold Daniels, aged twenty-six, volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps and served as a flight navigator in England, completing over 30 missions without a single combat casualty. Recognizing the team's exceptional performance, commanders enlisted a psychologist to study their collaborative success. This experience sparked Daniels' interest in psychometric testing, becoming the cornerstone of a career dedicated to solving business challenges through the lens of individual understanding. Post-war, he briefly attended Harvard to study workplace psychology, releasing the inaugural Predictive Index Assessment in 1952.

Establishing PI Worldwide in 1955, Daniels developed the Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment through a normative sample of thousands, with subsequent validation studies exceeding 500 participants. Continuously updated, the assessment remains a well-established, business-relevant tool, providing insights into workplace behavioral tendencies.

Arnold S. Daniels passed away in 1998, leaving behind a legacy in organizational psychology and psychometrics that proved pivotal in shaping the future workplace. Talent optimization, conceptualized to harmonize business and talent strategies, evolved into a discipline driven by assessment data applied at the individual, team, and organizational levels. Over time, PI expanded its offerings to include the PI Cognitive Assessment™, and the Job Assessment™, defining roles through individual attributes. Together, these assessments realize Daniels' vision by identifying motivational drivers, essential for achieving professional success.

Products and Services

The Predictive Index offers a comprehensive suite of assessment tools and complimentary software designed to optimize talent management and elevate organizational performance. At the core of PI's offerings is the Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment (BA), a scientifically validated tool that analyzes workplace behaviors, providing insights into individuals' inherent drives and motivations. This assessment aids organizations in comprehending behavioral patterns across various work scenarios, facilitating recruitment, team formation, leadership development, and employee retention strategies. In addition to the BA, PI provides tailored software modules to meet diverse organizational needs, including:

• PI Hire, a module aimed at finding and retaining the best possible talent through eliminating the guesswork and wasted time in the hiring journey
• PI Inspire, a module aimed at giving managers and their direct reports the tools needed to develop and motivate each employee at scale through personalized leadership approaches
• PI Design, a module aimed at cultivating teams through individual and mutual awareness, and alignment to goals
• PI Diagnose, a module aimed at improving employee engagement and creating a best-in-class culture
• PI Perform, an all-in-one module aimed at managing meetings, feedback, goals, and employee recognition with behavioral insights

Approach and Methodology

PI's Science team continually enhances assessment defensibility through ongoing research and validity studies, ensuring robust psychometrics and fairness. The Predictive Index assessments are both reviewed by independent reviewers and re-certified through the EFPA according to their established certification frequency.  The Behavioral Assessment was last certified in 2021 and will be re-certified by the EFPA in 2026; while the Cognitive assessment was certified in 2023 and will be re-certified in 2028.

Our Scientific Principles

With over 60 years of scientific backing, PI has conducted numerous client validation studies, demonstrating correlations between assessment results and job performance across industries, companies, and roles. Adhering to industry best practices outlined in The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, PI engages in extensive research, development, and maintenance, including:

• Domain mapping and content validity studies
• Item analysis
• Convergent and discriminant construct validity studies
• Reliability and dimensionality analysis
• Test-retest studies for stability
• Fairness studies, incorporating differential item functioning analysis
• Criterion-related validity studies
• Norm studies

Item Analysis and Fairness Research

When developing and maintaining assessments, PI employs differential item functioning (DIF) to detect biases among different demographic groups scoring similarly. These periodic analyses ensure fair assessment development and implementation, removing biased items that could influence overall results. PI conducts ongoing fairness and reliability studies to uphold assessment integrity.

The PI Behavioral Assessment has been reviewed by other researchers periodically over the course of the company’s history. In late 2018, Form V of the PI Behavioral Assessment underwent successful certification review under the guidelines published by the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA). This included an in-depth look at both the assessment and its properties for a global sample, with auditors reviewing the development process, fairness studies, assessment report design, norm structures, and more. Further, this review process allowed for submission of localized evidence, which was reviewed and certified for Norway, Sweden, and South Africa. The EFPA certification is PI’s largest and most advanced peer review to date. The PI Cognitive Assessment achieved EFPA certification in 2020 and maintained certification through 2023, while the PI Behavioral Assessment achieved EFPA certification in 2021 and expects to maintain the certification through 2024.  

Reliability Research

Reliability refers to measurement precision and consistency. PI evaluates internal consistency reliability, primarily using coefficient alpha, to ensure items within each assessment component are correlated effectively. Test-retest reliability studies indicate the stability of scores over time, and have affirmed the stability of the Behavioral Assessment results for a period of up to 4 years. This affirmed the assessments' suitability for employment and talent management decisions.

Validity Research

Assessment validity measures how accurately an assessment captures its intended construct. PI conducts construct validity studies to validate assessment content, ensuring assessments effectively measure traits like cognitive ability and work-related personality. Validity research is ongoing, adapting assessments to evolving organizational needs and use cases.

Criterion Validity	Scores on the measure are linked to relevant outcome variables.	The PI Behavioral Assessment is positively related to job performance.
Construct Validity	The assessment captures the construct it is intended to capture.	The PI Cognitive Assessment measures general cognitive ability.
Content Validity	The content of the measure adequately captures the universe of content that defines the construct.	The PI Behavioral Assessment covers the content domain of adult work-related personality.
Face Validity	The content of the measure appears to reflect the construct being measured.	The questions on the PI Cognitive Assessment appear to require cognitive ability.

PI’s Science team is committed to ongoing validation improvement, mirroring its dedication to software enhancement. The team's core focus revolves around maintaining assessments through extensive research, encompassing reliability, validity, and fairness studies. This process includes regular updates and new research initiatives to refine assessment forms and address specific regional or demographic considerations. For example, PI undertakes periodic reevaluation of validation, reliability, dimensionality, and fairness for the PI Behavioral Assessment to maintain EFPA certification every five years.

Corporate Culture and Values

Change@Work

During the onset of COVID-19, significant transformations ensued. Remote work transitioned from temporary to a permanent fixture, while societal and political unrest led to disruptions within workplaces. This period blurred the boundaries between personal and professional lives, compelling organizations to reassess their approaches to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Despite the passage of time, the imperative for employees to bring their authentic selves to work—voicing opinions, sharing ideas, and asserting identities—remains steadfast. Change@Work was launched in 2020 to actualize this aspiration, empowering both employees and employers to foster positive workplace dynamics. The initiative revolves around three fundamental principles:

• Inclusion: Promoting comprehensive participation and the acknowledgment of diverse perspectives.
• Employee-led: Encouraging a grassroots approach to change, driven by individual commitment rather than top-down directives.
• Transparency: Emphasizing accountability through regular progress sharing, constructive feedback incorporation, and evidence-based support for colleagues' efforts.

References

This article "Predictive Index" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Predictive Index. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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