Explainer: Unifrog's psychometric testing FAQs
Psychometric testing is one of the ways Unifrog supports your students to find the best post-school destinations for them. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about how Unifrog’s psychometric testing works.
What is psychometric testing at Unifrog?
Unifrog’s comprehensive psychometric testing is an enjoyable way for students to explore their interests, strengths, and areas for development, and to see how their results relate to possible careers and subject choices. This helps students to build a foundation to then conduct focused careers research in the areas that most interest them.
Unifrog’s psychometric testing consists of four quizzes, three tests, and one profile tool:
The Interests quiz is based on John Holland's theory of personality and job choices.
The Personality quiz is based on the theory behind the Myers-Briggs personality framework.
The Work environments quiz is based on the ONET ‘Work contexts’, and gets students to consider different work settings, activities, and situations to get a sense of what they would be most happy with.
New: The Skills quiz asks students to self-evaluate their level on 22 different skills by considering specific scenarios where they would need to use these skills.
New: Skills tests will be available for students once they complete the Skills quiz. Our three tests cover topics like numeracy, verbal reasoning, and pattern reasoning.
New: The Quiz profile tool brings the results of these quizzes together, suggesting the most relevant next steps for each student.
You’ll be pleased to hear that psychometric testing is free for all Unifrog partners! This means that you only need one platform to manage your careers, PSHE, work experience, and psychometric testing provision. Plus, students only need to access one platform to keep track of their entire careers journey throughout their time at school or college.
If your school or college is not yet a Unifrog partner you can find out more here!
How does it help students?
Unifrog’s psychometric testing helps students:
- Consider their interests, personality type, preferred work environments, and different skill levels, and how these relate to what they might want to do in the future
- Think about how these results combine to give an accurate picture of potential pathways for them
- Explore the Careers and Subject library profiles which have been tailored to their results, getting them thinking about what they might like to pursue
- Get familiar with skills tests to prepare for job applications: the types of skills tests we’ve built are often part of the application process for jobs in a wide range of sectors, and even some apprenticeship and school leaver programmes
How does it help teachers and careers advisers/counselors?
Unifrog’s psychometric testing helps bring your careers guidance into one place by:
- Pulling together a report (the Quiz profile) for each student detailing their results and sophisticated suggestions for future pathways
- Directing students to Career and Subject profiles on Unifrog via their Quiz profile, which can in turn inform your guidance on next steps for each student
- Highlighting the most popular pathways, which can then direct your careers lesson planning and encounters with employers and employees
- Acting as a springboard to support your students to use the other tools on Unifrog, and take tangible steps to planning their post-school pathways
How can teachers use psychometric testing in the classroom?
In a 15-minute form time session or one-to-one with students, you can:
- Get students to complete one of the psychometric quizzes or tests. Each one should take 15 minutes or less to complete
- Get students to check out their Quiz profile for their combined results. You can spend time getting them to explore their recommended Careers and Subject library profiles and favourite the ones they’re interested in
- Get students to use the tools under ‘Searching for opportunities’ to start making their first Shortlists
Got more time? Check out our new psychometric testing lessons in the Resources library: we have 15-minute to 2-hour lessons to support you and your students on topics like how to use the quizzes and how to reflect on the results for different age groups.
Do students need support from a careers advisor/counselor to read their results?
No — this is an important difference to some other tests available out there! Student results are available straight away and they are easy to read and interpret. The results also provide students with actionable next steps to research opportunities and develop their skills further.
However, the test results would provide a great talking point for a guidance interview with a careers advisor/counselor. Students can share their results with careers advisors/counselors, teachers, and parents directly via their results page.
At what age should students take Unifrog’s psychometric tests?
Students can take the quizzes and tests that comprise Unifrog’s psychometric testing at any age, but results become more accurate as they get older and students should redo the tests regularly. The recommended ages are:
- Interests quiz: from age 12
- Skills quiz: from age 12
- Work environments quiz: from age 14
- Personality quiz and Skills tests: from age 16
When should students complete each quiz?
We don’t recommend that students take all the quizzes in one sitting, as they might get bored and start answering less carefully. They should take the quizzes around the same point in their life, however, completing them all within six months of each other.
Students should retake quizzes every 18 months or so. The results of each quiz will become more accurate as students get older, so ideally they would do or re-do them all aged 16-18.
The approximate time needed for each of the quizzes/tests is as follows:
- The Interests quiz: 12 minutes
- The Personality quiz: 12 minutes
- The Work environments quiz: 12 minutes
- The Skills quiz: 15 minutes
- The Skills tests: each of the three tests takes 12 minutes (but students don’t have to take all of them in one go!)
Are the quizzes validated psychometric tests, and if so, how?
We review each of our quizzes every six months. These reviews typically focus on making sure we’re satisfied with the internal validation of each quiz (i.e. confident that questions within a category accurately measure the same concept).
We use measures such as Cronbach's Alpha to assess internal validity, making adjustments to our quiz questions whenever necessary. For our Skills quiz, we also validate the level of our questions by comparing the results across different year groups. With well over one million quizzes completed, we have a rich dataset to inform this process.
We also frequently analyse how we match quiz results with other parts of the platform (like the careers in our Careers library) to check all our suggestions for students are valid and useful.
Will it cost more to add psychometric testing to my school or college’s Unifrog subscription?
Our comprehensive psychometric testing is available for all Unifrog partners at no extra cost. The new Skills quiz will go live on all student accounts on 16 January 2023. It’s important to us that all students, regardless of their background, have access to the information they need to make the most informed choices about their future.
I want to learn more about implementing Unifrog’s psychometric testing at my school – what should I do?
We have a range of supporting resources available to support you with the different aspects of psychometric testing covered by Unifrog’s quizzes and tests. Here are the links to the relevant Help library guides on Unifrog (you’ll only be able to see these if you are already a Unifrog partner):
- Interests quiz
- Personality quiz
- Work environments quiz
- Skills quiz and tests
- Quiz profile
- Psychometric testing
If you're already a Unifrog partner and you have further questions, please contact your Area Manager, or email us at info@unifrog.org.
If you don’t work with us already, please:
- Request a demo here (we'll then set up a meeting with you), or
- Call us on +4420 3372 5991 or email us at info@unifrog.org