A service-delivery paradigm for personality assessment

This paper describes a human science approach to the delivery of the feedback component of assessment services. The feedback process is now central to a collaborative assessment that is integrated with intervention. Research has suggested that subject, situational, and assessor variables are relevant for feedback, but such research has been unsystematic. A service-delivery paradigm for feedback of assessment findings is described that includes four levels of increasing client participation: information, emotional contingencies, transfer of power, and functioning of an assessment system. Communication of assessment findings has been incomplete historically because motivation for feedback, resource accessibility for feedback utilization, and criteria for adequate feedback have been considered as unrelated ingredients. The components of Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence construct--meaningfulness, manageability and comprehensibility--provide one conceptualization for interaction of these ingredients. It is now feasible to do systematic research on assessment that includes feedback of assessment findings and the service-delivery process.