MT302 Unit 3 Personality Instrument Interpretation Example

A 3.6 That Hides a Split: An MT302 Unit 3 Instrument Interpretation of a BFI-2 Conscientiousness Score

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT302: Organizational Behavior

Unit 3 Instrument Interpretation

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The author's scores, work records and office are composite; the instrument and studies cited are real.

The Instrument

The BFI-2, published by Soto and John (2017), has sixty items rated from 1, disagree strongly, to 5, agree strongly. Each of its five broad domains splits into three narrower facets. Conscientiousness, for example, divides into organization, productiveness and responsibility. Scores are item means, not percentiles. A score of 3.6 means my average answer was between neutral and agree a little; it does not mean I am more conscientious than 60 percent of people. Soto and John designed the facets to add detail and predictive power beyond the domains, which is the reason to read them.

My Results

Extraversion: 3.2 (sociability 3.0, assertiveness 3.5, energy level 3.1) Agreeableness: 4.1 (compassion 4.3, respectfulness 4.5, trust 3.5) Conscientiousness: 3.6 (organization 4.5, productiveness 2.8, responsibility 3.5) Negative emotionality: 3.3 (anxiety 4.0, depression 2.5, emotional volatility 3.4) Open-mindedness: 3.4 (intellectual curiosity 3.5, aesthetic sensitivity 3.0, creative imagination 3.7)

Interpretation: The Conscientiousness Split

The domain score of 3.6 averages a high organization facet, 4.5, with a low productiveness facet, 2.8. Reporting only the domain would hide both.

I checked the split against my work. I pulled sixty closing files I coordinated between January and March from the office log and recorded when each package went to the escrow officer relative to its deadline.

Routine files (41). Purchase files with lenders we work with often. Thirty-four went out at least a day early.

Difficult files (19). Files needing calls to lenders known for slow or changing figures. Fifteen went out on the last possible day, and three were late.

The organization facet fits the routine files: my checklists, folders and tracking sheet are tidy, and routine packages move through them early. The productiveness facet fits the difficult files: items such as "tends to be lazy" and "has difficulty getting started on tasks" describe how I delay the calls I dread. The split is real, and it is a split between kinds of work rather than between days.

My tidy desk and my last-minute lender calls are the same score, and only the facets tell them apart.

Interpretation: Anxiety at 4.0

My anxiety facet, 4.0, is the highest score in negative emotionality. On its own, it sounds like a weakness. My emails show a habit that goes with it: I check wire instructions three times before any closing and call the recipient to confirm by phone. In a title office, where wire fraud is a constant threat, that habit is exactly what the job rewards. The same facet may also explain the delayed lender calls, since anxiety can lead to avoidance of unpleasant tasks. One facet, two behaviors, one helpful and one costly.

Interpretation: Agreeableness and the Lender Calls

My highest domain is agreeableness, 4.1, with respectfulness at 4.5. That may connect to the delayed lender calls as well. The calls I put off are the ones where I must press a lender for figures that are late, or tell an agent that a closing will move. Those calls involve friction, and people high in agreeableness often find friction unpleasant. My trust facet, lower at 3.5, fits a different habit: I double-check other people's figures, which is useful in a title office. Read together, the facets suggest that my delays are less about energy and more about avoiding conflict, which changes what would help. A better calendar would not fix it; a script for difficult calls might.

What My Supervisor's Feedback Shows

My last written review, from the office manager, praised my "clean, well-organized packages" and noted that "files with difficult lenders sometimes reach the officer late." I had read the second comment as a complaint about those lenders. Read beside the facet scores and the file log, it describes the same split the inventory found. Three independent sources, a self-report, my own records and a supervisor's observation, point in the same direction, which gives me more confidence in the interpretation than any one of them alone.

What Research Adds

Barrick and Mount (1991), in a meta-analysis of the Big Five and job performance, found that conscientiousness predicted performance consistently across occupational groups, though modestly. That supports taking my score seriously as a work trait. Soto and John (2017) report that the facets sometimes predict specific behaviors better than the broad domains, which fits my result: productiveness, not conscientiousness as a whole, predicts my difficult files.

What the Result Does Not Mean

The score is not a type or a verdict. It does not say I am a disorganized person, and it does not say I will always delay hard calls. It describes how I answered sixty statements on one day. Robbins and Judge (2019) caution against using personality measures to label people, and I would not want my result, or anyone's, used to screen applicants for coordinator jobs on the basis of a single domain score.

Limits

Self-report. I rated myself, and people often describe themselves more favorably than others do. A colleague's rating would be a useful check.

One administration. I took the inventory once, on a quiet Friday afternoon. A second administration in a busy month might differ.

No norm table. Because scores are means, I cannot say how my 3.6 compares with others' without a norm sample. The paper treats my scores only as information about my own answers.

Small file sample. Sixty files across three months is enough to see a pattern but not to rule out chance, and the difficult files were defined by me.

What I Will Do With It

I will schedule difficult lender calls first thing in the morning on the day a file opens, rather than waiting until the package is due. I will keep the triple check on wire instructions. And I will ask a colleague to rate me on the same inventory to see whether the split appears from outside.

Conclusion

My conscientiousness score of 3.6 hides a split between a high organization facet and a low productiveness facet, a split that matches my own work records: routine files early, difficult files late. My anxiety facet both protects closings and may feed avoidance. Reading the BFI-2 facet by facet, and checking it against behavior, made the instrument useful in a way the domain score alone could not.

References

Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2019). Organizational behavior (18th ed.). Pearson.

Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117-143. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096