Development of Strengths Profile

Launched in 2009, Strengths Profile was created with a vision of a richer tool that captures the uniqueness of people. Development comprised of 30,000 interviews, where a classification of strengths was constructed based on the descriptions of people who exemplified a given strength. This classification database consists of 220 strengths, with the 60 strengths that gave the broadest and most representative basis for assessing strengths in the general population being included in Strengths Profile. The Strengths Profile assessment is unique in that it measures three elements for each of the 60 strengths, namely performance, energy and frequency of use.

Accuracy

In order to validate the accuracy of the results of Strengths Profile, alpha coefficients have been calculated to measure internal consistency. The established standard for good accuracy is considered to be a Cronbach’s alpha of greater than .70. The mean Cronbach’s alpha for the 60 Strengths Profile items is .82, with Bounceback and Planner being the highest, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .90. These results mean that Strengths Profile measures the 60 strengths accurately.

Stability

Strengths Profile is dynamic and designed to be taken every 6-12 months as context and circumstances can change over time. To measure for test-retest reliability, participants took Strengths Profile one week apart. The correlations for each strength and across performance, energy and use, ranged from .634 to .802, which are considered to be strong correlations. These results show that test-retest positively correlates and Strengths Profile detects changes, but is stable over time.

Faking it

Strengths Profile is a self-report assessment tool, meaning that responses are subjective. Social desirability can be described as answering in a way that could be seen as favourable to others.  To measure social desirability, participants who had taken Strengths Profile were asked to complete the Social Desirability Scale. The results returned a Cronbach’s alpha of .81, showing that Strengths Profile responses are not adversely affected by social desirability.

Differences between strengths

As Strengths Profile contains 60 strengths, it is important to confirm that each strength is distinct, without overlap. Measuring the differences between each of the strengths using inter-correlations indicated that each of the strengths is conceptually and statistically independent. The highest shared variance between strengths is Creativity and Innovation with a Spearman’s correlation of .30, meaning that only 30% of variance is shared between the two strengths.

Gender and Inclusivity

Strengths Profile has been shown to measure without bias in regards to gender. Small effect sizes were reported using Cohen’s d formula and indicated that the 60 strengths show negligible difference between gender.

Strengths Profile has been assessed as above average and easy to use with regards to neurodiversity, and is designed for people with a reading age of 16+. There is no timer when answering the assessment questions, as this can induce stress on a number of neurodiverse conditions.

If you would like further information about the science behind Strengths Profile, you can download the Strengths Profile Technical Manual.