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JvR is pleased to offer a new range of products to South Africans, from Schuhfried in Austria, namely the Vienna Test System, CogniPlus, RehaCom, and an excellent Biofeedback system. These systems are internationally recognised and respected for their quality, and we are excited about their potential in the South African context. The four systems are suitable in a variety of application areas, such as clinics, personnel, aviation, sport, military, and traffic psychology, and research. Read more about the Vienna Test System in this week’s article:

** A Demo of the VTS will be on display at SIOPSA 09 **

Vienna Test System

The Vienna Test System (VTS) is a computerised psychological assessment that consists of various personality, intelligence, and special ability assessments. The VTS was developed by the SCHUHFRIED Company in the early 1980s and has years of research backing the test system. The company was founded in 1947 in Austria and is now available in 65 countries, on all 5 continents.

Areas of Application

The Vienna Test System and associated products can be used in a number of applied fields in psychology, namely: Clinical and Health Psychology, Neuropsychology, Personnel Psychology, Traffic Psychology, Aviation Psychology, Sport Psychology as well as Educational Psychology.

What makes the VTS a unique system is that besides the personality and intelligence tests that it offers, it provides one the opportunity to capture abilities such as: …

• Senso-motor coordination
• Reactive stress tolerance
• Reaction time and motor speed
• Visual perception speed
• Field of vision and peripheral perception
• Time, motion, distance, speed estimation and anticipation
• All forms of attention
• Ability to deal with stress
• Fine motor abilities
• Activation and arousal as well as audiometer.

Administration

The test system consists of administration software, tests and special input or peripheral devices (hardware) which some of the tests require. The VTS consists of more than 80 tests which consist of electronic versions of paper-and-pencil tests, objective personality tests, multimedia tests, adaptive tests, and interactive tests. Once the system has been installed and set up on the computer, one is able to select the tests that one wants to use or, alternatively, can select from special standard test batteries.

Each test begins with an instruction phase and then allows the candidate to complete some practice items before the test begins.

Reporting

Once the candidate has completed the test, the results are immediately available in a short report which provides the percentile ranks of the raw scores for each test variable. The report also includes other important information such as the test protocol, which gives details about the candidate’s responses and the time taken to work each item. A longer diagnostic report is also available. There is also a “ranking function” that allows the test user to rank the candidates’ test results, once the weightings have been entered by the test user. The evaluation system then determines the fit between the candidate and position based on the weightings supplied.

Expert Systems

The Expert Systems consist of standardised validated test batteries that take all the test results into account when providing a report. The VTS presently contains two expert systems, namely the Expert System Aviation and the Expert System Traffic. The Expert System Aviation provides an overall assessment of the candidate’s cognitive ability and safety-related personality traits, related specifically to that field. The Expert System Traffic on the other hand, can be used to assess driving-specific abilities. There is also a Neuropsychological Test Battery for neuropsychological screening.

For more information on or a demonstration on the Vienna Test System; and how it can improve your selection/development and retention of employees, please contact us on info@jvrafrica.co.za or capeinfo@jvafrica.co.za

You can also find more info on some of the other Schuhfried Assessments in our website’s catalogue section.

Author: Dorron Aremband

I am sure that reading this as a professional in the field of psychology and psychometrics, the title of this article more than likely sparked some degree of panic. It is likely that answers such as ‘of course’ or ‘it is best practice’ immediately presented themselves as the only feasible answer to such an obvious question. I am also of the opinion that for many, even proposing that cognitive assessments should not always be administered first within an assessment battery, is psychological and psychometric blasphemy. There is no doubt that best practice dictates the point above, in addition, assessment distributors and providers are very stringent in terms of promoting that for occupational assessment, a cognitive assessment should always be administered first. 

However…A colleague and I have recently noticed a trend. Individuals that had undergone an assessment battery often complained that the simulation exercise that they were required to complete was the most taxing, and in they would have liked to complete the simulation exercise first. This sparked a debate between my colleague and me. I argued for the cognitive assessment to be administered initially, whilst my colleague argued that the simulation exercise should be administered initially. This argument began to spiral into a further argument: whether the type of simulation exercise or cognitive assessment will have an impact on which instrument to administer at the onset. Furthermore; is the participants’ opinion substantiated (as they are not the professional)? Should their opinion change the way in which the process is currently undertaken. In essence, both arguments carry some validity, depending on the criteria used to authenticate the proposed dilemma…

Personally I shared and still do share the same conviction proposed above. In addition, as a unit that provides an assessment service, it is our policy to administer cognitive assessments initially and such assessments should not even be administered in the afternoon.

However I wanted to test my opinion at the hand of a wider audience. The fundamental postulate is: as practicing, competent professionals we understand that occupational cognitive assessments should be administered first as best practice. Past learning has infused this belief to such an extent that it is rarely challenged. The question is – if this still makes sense?

What do you think? Perhaps you have come across research to justify one position over the other? I’m looking forward to your comments below.