The Prevue Assessment System, published by View Assessments International Inc., provides businesses and human resource professionals with a suite of reports that assist in human resource decision-making. The Prevue Questionnaire is based on the ICES Plus Assessment Test, an accurate, valid and reliable psychometric assessment that measures work-related characteristics of people through their responses to a set of questions. It was developed exclusively for View Assessments International Inc. by world-renowned psychometric experts.
The construction and validation of the Prevue Assessment was completed in the United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, Singapore and Malaysia. Approximately 4,700 employed people, in a variety of occupations, participated in the validation group. They worked for companies of all sizes and in government. The people in the validation study represent a true cross-section of the international workforce, giving the Prevue Assessment multiracial, multicultural and multilinguistic validity. Content, construct and job validation studies have confirmed the reliability and validity of the Prevue Assessment.
The validity and reliability of the ICES Plus test is further confirmed by numerous construct, content, concurrent, and predictive studies undertaken by NPAL. The details of all these studies are reported in the Prevue Assessment Technical Manual.
Prevue is a unique and powerful business management tool. In addition to the personality and interests scales found in many assessments, Prevue includes a validated and reliable General Abilities section. Prevue Assessment is at the leading edge of accurately and predictably assessing the whole person when it comes to asking: “Can and will he/she do the job?”
The Prevue™ Assessment is a scientifically designed method of measuring work-related characteristics of people. It is an accurate, valid, and reliable psychometric assessment used for a wide variety of human resource requirements including assisting in the prediction of the job suitability of candidates for specific jobs, aiding the team building process and detailing specific information on employees’ training and coaching requirements. Most human resource decisions will benefit from the use of the Prevue™ Assessment in conjunction with work history reviews and interviews. It is recommended that the Prevue Assessment should not constitute more than 30% of the decision-making process for selection of new employees and should be less when assessing existing employees where there is on-the-job information on file.
Prevue is designed to measure a number of personal attributes of job candidates.The Prevue Assessment evaluates an employee or candidate for::
• Four mental ability scales • Three interest scales • Twelve personality scales • A social desirability scale
The Mental Abilities Scales
These are not an IQ test. They provide us some information about an individual’s ability to learn new information and how quickly they can “think on their feet,” which can be an important in jobs that have changing circumstances and new information. The four mental abilities scales addressed by the Prevue Assessment System are:
General Ability: measures a person’s capacity to deal with ideas, solve problems, and to assimilate new information. It is an indication of how well a person thinks ahead to anticipate the effects of actions and decisions and how quickly he or she learns.
Working with Numbers: is an evaluation of numerical reasoning ability. It shows how well an individual reasons with new information, data, and numbers. It indicates the ability to reason logically and solve problems.
Working with Words: relates to reasoning with and using written language effectively. It is an indication of written communication skills.
Working with Shapes: has to do with spatial skills, or how well a person is able to manipulate objects, both physically and visually. It is an indication of a person’s ability to think and reason in three dimensions.
Job Interest and Motivation
Generally, people work more effectively in jobs that are aligned with their interests. The Prevue Assessment measures interests in three scales derived from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles that are:
Working with People: measures the extent to which an individual needs or wants involvement with people. It also indicates whether a person wants to mentor, negotiate, instruct, supervise, delegate, persuade, interact, serve, and help.
Working with Data: measure how a person feels about working with statistics, symbols, facts, and figures. It is different from Working with Numbers because it measures interests not abilities. Working with Data indicates an interest in synthesizing, coordinating, analyzing, compiling, computing, copying, and comparing.
Working with Things: measures an individual’s interest in working with inanimate objects such as machinery, tools, and equipment. An interest in Working with Things includes setting up, precision working, operating-controlling, driving-operating, manipulating, tending, feeding, unloading, and handling.
The Twelve Personality Scales
In Prevue these comprised of four major scales, each of which is supported by two minor scales. The four major scales are Independence, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, and Stability and are generally referred to as ICES.
Each of these major and minor scales measures a personality trait in terms of two extremes. Thus, by way of example the opposite of Extrovert is Introvert and the opposite of Competitive is Co-operative. A general description of each of the major and minor scales follows:
DIPLOMATIC vs. INDEPENDENT Cooperative vs. Competitive Submissive vs. Assertive
SPONTANEOUS vs. CONSCIENTIOUS Innovative vs. Conventional Reactive vs. Organized
INTROVERT vs. EXTROVERT Self-sufficient: vs. Group Oriented Reserved vs. Outgoing
EMOTIONAL vs. STABLE Restless vs. Poised Excitable vs. Relaxed
Social Desirability Scale
An employee evaluation is not complete without a way to tell if the candidate might have tried to fake their responses. The fourth area measured by the Prevue has to do with the internal validity of the candidate’s responses to the questions in the test. A scale denoted as Social Desirability can provide a measure of the degree to which the test taker has modified responses to please or impress those who will be reading the resulting report. In addition, abnormal response patterns to the questions in the test will invalidate a candidate’s results. This fourth measurement makes the Prevue Assessment resistant to attempts to “fake it” or manipulate the results.
The process begins with the completion of our valid and reliable Prevue Assessment, which measures Abilities, Interests, and Personality. The time required to complete a Prevue Assessment is between one half-hour and one hour depending upon the version of Prevue Assessment you require and the speed at which the candidate completes the assessment.
The main purpose of Prevue Online Assessment Center is to prepare Assessment Reports that compare the job candidate to a given job description in a manner that is easy for a manager to understand. Once a candidate completes the assessment, a number of reports can be generated that will aid management in making human resource decisions.
The reports graphically display the candidate’s scores as a number ranging from 1 to 10 for each of the scales measured. Each line of the graph is a bell curve that has a normal distribution of ten. The majority of people, or 68% of the general working population, will fall in the middle 4-5-6-7 range of this graph. At the extremes, the likelihood of a 1 or a 10 score is approximately 2%.
The Prevue Assessment Software prints a “Job Description Survey” to be completed by management in order to relate the requirements of the job to the Prevue scales. It is imperative that the manager completing the Job Description Survey has a thorough understanding of the skills, responsibilities, attitudes, and abilities necessary to perform the job well. If there is more than one manager in your organization who has a thorough knowledge of the requirements of the job it is recommended that all such persons complete a Job Description Survey.
A preliminary benchmark is created when the completed survey is entered into the program. This process is based solely on management’s understanding and assessment of the job. The Job Description Survey is to be completed by the immediate supervisor of the people doing a particular job. Once the benchmark is created, it is reviewed with management and adjusted as necessary.
It is then recommended that existing employees holding the position or who have held the position in the past complete the Prevue Assessment. Their reports are matched against the benchmark to confirm that the job profile management created accurately describes the Personality Traits, Interests and Abilities of the best performing employees.
Good hiring and promoting practices require that the job candidates should be matched to those required for the job for which the candidates are being considered. This can be accomplished by creating a Benchmark of the features that your experience has confirmed are required for the job. This requires that you give careful consideration to the actual requirements of the job before evaluating candidates, interviewing them, and filling the job.
The importance of establishing accurate job requirements can be better understood by example. Consider how uncomfortable you would be if the pilot flying your next
flight was a risk-taker and disliked following detailed plans. How concerned would you be if your child’s school bus driver was extremely assertive and very competitive? The job requirements must accurately reflect the traits desired in a candidate.
It is easy to define the technical requirements of a job such as the required professional qualifications or the ability to use a computer. It is more difficult to define a “people-person” or a “self-starter.” The Benchmark is the method that graphically represents the desired characteristics for the job as an overlay in the various reports available from the Prevue Assessment System.
Each Benchmark is created and saved in the computer by job title. Thereafter, any job candidate can be compared with the specific job requirements reflected in the Benchmark. The Software emphasizes the areas where the candidate is not compatible with the criteria reflected in the Benchmark. In this way the Prevue Assessment matches people to jobs.
The Selection and Succession Planning reports yield an overall percentage of job suitability and a summary of each characteristic identified in the Benchmark. The overall percentage figure helps you rank candidates in respect of their job suitability. Additionally, if the candidate does not match a preferred characteristic in the Benchmark, the Prevue Selection Report suggests relevant interview questions and the Prevue Coaching Report offers training or directional tips. This information is designed to help the interviewer or the coach maximize on-the-job performance.
Your Prevue Assessment System will produce five types of reports for the following uses or applications:
Selection Report to assist with suggested job interview questions or hiring applications;
Personal Development for training and coaching requirements;
Succession Planning Report to compare a candidate to the Benchmarks for various jobs;
Individual Report which can be made available to a permanent employee if desired;
Working Characteristics Reports provides information on five topics presented as business related behaviors.
Sales Version
General Version
Get 5 Reports for the price of one. Yes, that’s right. Another unique feature of the Prevue Assessment System is that users are charged only for the first report – or you get 5 reports for one fee per candidate. Once a candidate is entered into the system, users are not charged again when they process additional report versions including the Succession Planning report which compares multiple candidates against the job profile or a single candidate against multiple benchmarks for career pathing and development opportunities.
