Research reference

The research behind the questions

For decades, personality researchers have studied five broad areas that describe how people tend to work, respond and relate to others. This assessment begins with a peer-reviewed set of 20 questions built from that work.

Start with the idea

Personality researchers often group recurring tendencies into five broad areas. This is commonly called the Five Factor Model or the Big Five. It gives researchers a shared way to study personality across many people and settings.

Five Factor ModelFive broad areas researchers use to describe common ways people tend to think, feel and act. Many people know it as the Big Five.

International Personality Item PoolAn openly available library of personality questions developed and shared by researchers. Its initials are IPIP.

The short measure used hereA peer-reviewed set of 20 questions, with four questions for each broad area. Researchers call it the Mini-IPIP.

What this assessment uses

The 20 questions come from a peer-reviewed short measure published by Donnellan and colleagues in 2006. The paper describes how the questions map to the five broad areas and how each response is scored. Some statements run in the opposite direction, so their scores are reversed before the area score is calculated.

UTL wrote the area names shown to participants, the plain-language explanations, the profile combinations and the readiness score display.

What comes from research and what UTL added

Published foundation

Questions: The 20 Mini-IPIP statements used in the assessment.
Five areas: The five broad personality areas measured by those questions.
Scoring: The positive and reverse scoring keys for each question.

UTL interpretation

Readiness score: The combined score and the ranges used to explain it.
Participant language: The names Follow-through, Steadiness, Curiosity, Social energy and Warmth.
Results guidance: The profile names, explanations and suggested actions.

The published work supports using these questions to describe broad self-reported personality traits. The UTL score supports personal reflection. It does not predict promotion, leadership performance or success in an executive role.

How UTL calculates the score

Each answer uses a five-point scale, and UTL combines your answers on Follow-through, Steadiness and Curiosity into one score. UTL selected these three areas because they cover completing work, staying clear under pressure and working through unfamiliar problems.

The exact scoring formula and range cut points may change as we gather feedback, so we keep them out of this public page. Your result is a provisional read of how you described yourself. Treat a one-point difference between two people as noise. See the full calculation reference if you want the mechanics.

The Big Five and the Mini-IPIP give this assessment a credible, peer-reviewed foundation. UTL added the readiness score, profiles and guidance. These have not yet been tested against real outcomes.

Why the questions are openly available

The International Personality Item Pool was created so researchers and practitioners could use, study and improve personality questions openly. We name the original work so readers can inspect the measure, the scoring approach and the limits for themselves.

How we use the published work

Short assessment: A peer-reviewed paper supplies the 20 questions and scoring keys used here.

Full facet report: UTL selected 40 questions from an established 120-question personality measure that examines more specific traits. Researchers call the full measure the IPIP-NEO-120. The full report is its own assessment of these 40 questions, separate from the 20-question short assessment.

Planned comparison figures: The 2019 study reports results from 320,128 participants who answered the longer question set. That study did not test the UTL readiness score.

Background reading: The leadership review summarizes links found between broad personality traits and leadership across earlier studies. It does not test the UTL score.

Limits to keep in mind

Self-report: The result comes from how you describe yourself today. Mood, context and the impression you want to give can affect an answer.
Short measure: Four questions cover each broad area. That keeps the assessment short and limits the precision of an individual result.
Scope: The result describes broad tendencies. It does not diagnose a condition or measure intelligence, job performance or promotion potential.

How to use your result

Use it as a starting point for reflection and a conversation about where you want to grow. Your individual result should remain private unless you choose to share it. Keep it out of hiring, promotion, pay, performance ratings, clinical decisions and claims about intelligence or future performance.

Sources

Source registry version