Open-Source Psychometrics Project
This page serves as documentation for the OSPP DISC Assessment Test.
The DISC personality model is a typology system with four types. The theory is promoted by a number of different companies, each using a different test and there is no definitive version. Because of this, the approach for test development taken here is to rely on peoples self typing to select items. The basic idea being that an item is a good one for measuring that type if people who identify as that type score higher on average on that item. This will produce an insturement that reflects the average userstanding of what the types are.
A beta version of the DISC Assessment Test was offered on this website. It had 50 items rated on a 1-5 scale of agreement (1=Disagree, 5=Agree). Fourty of these were developed by looking at various descriptions of the DISC types, and 10 were random. At the end of this version of the test the questions in the box below were asked. This provided good data to see which items actually predicted a DISC type.
If an item is a good item, it should have a type score higher than all the others on it. To make sure the self reported type was reliable, anyone who answered either "Not very confident" or "0-1 hours" is ignored in this analysis. The table below shows how each type scores on each item in terms of difference from average (on the 1-5 response scale). The type that scores the highest on an item is shaded in red.
For example, the average response of the 2,716 people who self reported D as their personality type on the item "I run to get where I am going faster" was 3.73/5 and the average response on this item for all types was 3.42/5, so on this item D types were 0.31 points above average. D types had the highest average score of any of the four types on this item, so they get marked in red.
| Item | D (n=2,716) | I (n=2,003) | S (n=1,433) | C (n=1,703) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I run to get where I am going faster. | 0.3113 | 0.1123 | -0.3901 | -0.3055 |
| I like to call people by their last names. | 0.1547 | -0.0608 | -0.1903 | -0.0489 |
| I put people under pressure. | 0.7358 | -0.2224 | -0.8018 | -0.1825 |
| I boast about my virtues. | 0.2581 | 0.1491 | -0.3749 | -0.2984 |
| I am always on the look out for ways to make money. | 0.397 | -0.0116 | -0.4254 | -0.2985 |
| I call people out when they tell fake or exaggerated stories. | 0.3784 | -0.1437 | -0.4214 | -0.0711 |
| I demand the recognition I deserve. | 0.3417 | 0.0824 | -0.4485 | -0.2974 |
| I speed up to avoid being passed. | 0.2984 | 0.0516 | -0.3386 | -0.2458 |
| I have a strong need for power. | 0.6934 | -0.0433 | -0.7613 | -0.412 |
| I try to outdo others. | 0.4749 | -0.0763 | -0.6354 | -0.0928 |
| I enjoy being part of a loud crowd. | 0.142 | 0.6765 | -0.3591 | -0.7434 |
| I want strangers to love me. | -0.2084 | 0.5098 | 0.095 | -0.3346 |
| I joke around a lot. | -0.013 | 0.4548 | -0.1339 | -0.3701 |
| I laugh aloud. | 0.0719 | 0.3955 | -0.1513 | -0.3856 |
| I willing to try anything once. | 0.1887 | 0.2516 | -0.2454 | -0.3837 |
| I seek adventure. | 0.2522 | 0.3142 | -0.3289 | -0.4874 |
| I make lots of noise. | 0.2961 | 0.5525 | -0.5285 | -0.668 |
| I find humour in everything. | -0.0894 | 0.4086 | -0.0263 | -0.3044 |
| I love large parties. | 0.1146 | 0.6706 | -0.3081 | -0.7583 |
| I prefer to participate fully rather than view life from the sidelines. | 0.2924 | 0.298 | -0.3571 | -0.5336 |
| I hesitate to criticize other people's ideas. | -0.5269 | 0.1273 | 0.6263 | 0.1406 |
| I just want everyone to be equal. | -0.4421 | 0.1835 | 0.4704 | 0.0569 |
| I phrase things diplomatically. | -0.2558 | 0.0693 | 0.2194 | 0.1649 |
| I have a good word for everyone. | -0.262 | 0.3606 | 0.292 | -0.2933 |
| I believe that others have good intentions. | -0.2293 | 0.2918 | 0.258 | -0.1952 |
| I would never cheat on my taxes. | -0.1754 | -0.1068 | 0.2583 | 0.1953 |
| I value cooperation over competition. | -0.4825 | 0.1843 | 0.5441 | 0.0763 |
| I seldom toot my own horn. | -0.2612 | -0.1909 | 0.3887 | 0.3309 |
| I hate to seem pushy. | -0.56 | 0.0782 | 0.5833 | 0.3251 |
| If lots of people like something, I usually will too. | -0.1811 | 0.2739 | 0.2224 | -0.2238 |
| I am emotionally reserved. | -0.1637 | -0.6445 | 0.3095 | 0.7542 |
| I read the fine print. | -0.0746 | -0.3868 | -0.0472 | 0.574 |
| I avoid mistakes. | -0.0641 | -0.3621 | 0.0732 | 0.4943 |
| I am always guarded. | -0.0101 | -0.563 | 0.1324 | 0.568 |
| I don't ever litter. | -0.1036 | -0.1255 | 0.1442 | 0.2213 |
| I do not like small talk. | 0.1722 | -0.5368 | -0.1134 | 0.47 |
| I hate it when people want to make changes for no reason. | -0.044 | -0.2758 | 0.1065 | 0.3231 |
| I love order and regularity. | -0.1189 | -0.4278 | 0.1641 | 0.5302 |
| My first reaction to an idea is to see its flaws. | 0.1896 | -0.4506 | -0.2252 | 0.464 |
| I leave parties early. | -0.0149 | -0.5017 | 0.1921 | 0.4962 |
| I prefer to make friends with people exactly like me. | -0.0217 | -0.1721 | 0.063 | 0.1753 |
| I like to do nice things for people even if I get no credit. | -0.1855 | 0.1273 | 0.2159 | -0.0611 |
| I always remember when someone compliments me. | -0.1093 | 0.1593 | 0.0827 | -0.0843 |
| I don't like people who dress messy. | 0.1807 | -0.1221 | -0.1881 | -0.0081 |
| I lose my patience when I get tired. | 0.1903 | -0.1086 | -0.1646 | 0.046 |
| I get jealous of other people's friendships. | -0.0779 | -0.0118 | 0.0933 | 0.1329 |
| I think some people are just better than others. | 0.3109 | -0.1668 | -0.3391 | 0.0091 |
| Sometimes I have a hard time taking my eyes off of an attractive person. | 0.0885 | 0.1551 | -0.1354 | -0.1931 |
| My trust gets broken a lot. | 0.0362 | -0.0985 | -0.0583 | 0.109 |
| I ask why things really happened. | 0.0887 | -0.1059 | -0.163 | 0.1685 |
The sample size is large that the type level differences for each item in the table above should be pretty reliable. The data used to compute this table can be downloaded at odat-item-screening-data1.ods.
Based on these results, the four best items for each type are below.
These 16 items are used as the OSPP DISC Assessment Test 1.0.
All text and data on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.