What’s the evidence that Everything DiSC Workplace® really works?
40 years of research and proven results
With an uncompromising focus on empirical research, each Everything DiSC® assessment has passed—actually, surpassed—the strictest testing standards to ensure its validity, reliability, usability, and effectiveness.
The application-specific Everything DiSC Workplace model, for example, is grounded in over 40 years of DiSC® research and knowledge and using the latest advancements in testing methodology specifically helps people better understand how they approach their work.
How it all began: the development of Everything DiSC Workplace
In the initial stages of the assessment’s development, nearly 2,300 participants (all working adults) were presented with 24 individual statements describing work tasks and asked to rate the importance of each to job effectiveness. For instance, participants were asked to rate the importance of “Speaking up about problems” on a five-point scale, ranging from “Not Important” (1) to “Crucially Important” (5).
After conducting additional weighting of responses and multidimensional scaling analysis, statements were then grouped into eight categories that have come to represent the eight priorities of the Everything DiSC Workplace model: Action, Enthusiasm, Collaboration, Support, Stability, Accuracy, Challenge, and Results.
In this model, the eight words around the map indicate the work priorities of people with different DiSC® styles: D (Dominance), i (Influence), S (Steadiness), and C (Conscientiousness).
Advanced Testing Methodology
Like every new DiSC assessment tool, during development, Everything DiSC Workplace underwent a unique iterative design process where it was prototyped, tested, analyzed, and continually refined.
This process includes extensive beta testing. For example, one of the most recent additions to the Everything DiSC family of assessments went through three full rounds of beta testing with more than 10,000 participants and 200 facilitators before it was officially launched.
In addition, Everything DiSC Workplace uses Adaptive Testing (AT), a computer-based iterative methodology that successively selects and presents subsequent questions based on a learner’s response to previous ones, which increases the precision of the assessment instrument and, ultimately, the results.
How much evidence is there that Everything DiSC Workplace is valid?
Of course, if an assessment instrument like Everything DiSC Workplace is to be useful, accurate, and trusted it must be validated through a process by which researchers test it against a variety of quality standards established by the psychological community. Specifically, validation examines:
- Reliability – does the instrument measure in a consistent and stable way?
- Validity – does the instrument measure what it proposes to measure?
Reliability
With 40 years of ongoing testing and study, researchers have consistently reported sound levels of stability and internal consistency—key components that measure an assessment’s reliability. Test-retest studies routinely achieve reliabilities well above .80 (considered “very good”), meaning that test takers and administrators can be confident that the assessment results will be stable over time. Internal consistency is another essential measure of an assessment’s reliability, which evaluates the correlation among similar questions on the same DiSC scale (e.g., “I am direct” and “I am forceful” and “I tend to challenge people” are all items on the D scale). When a sample of 752 respondents was analyzed, the scales on the DiSC instrument demonstrated good-to-excellent internal consistency—with a median of .87.
Validity
Does the Everything DiSC Workplace tool measure what it has been designed to measure? Absolutely! Studies of the model, including multidimensional scaling and correlations with other similar-trait instruments, have consistently confirmed the construct validity of DiSC. And ongoing empirical research continues to validate that this powerful assessment and its accompanying Profile report accurately reflects real-life workplace environments and is useful for understanding various approaches to work. Check out the Everything DiSC research report.
Proven Success in the Workplace
Employing modern advancements in psychometrics, Everything DiSC provides a trust-worthy assessment that is backed by solid research and strong reliability. But, perhaps the best answer to the question, “What’s the evidence that Everything DiSC Workplace really works?” can be found in thousands of workplaces in over 70 countries worldwide. 0ver 1 million people experience DiSC each year to help improve the quality of their workplace and interactions with others, making it one of the most recognizable brands in the world of research-validated assessments. And they are the most meaningful examples of the effectiveness of Everything DiSC to inspire, engage, and transform.
So why is it so important to understand personality styles and behavioral preferences?
Read more about how Southwest Business Corporation (SWBC) unleashed the power of Everything DiSC Workplace to establish a common language to improve communication and teamwork, and to create more productive workplaces.
