Q. How do we know that the Renewal Coaching assessments are reliable and valid?
A. The purpose of traditional tests is to render a judgment in a consistent way - that is, they are reliable – about a concept that is generally accepted as consistent - that is, they are valid. For example, if the purpose of an assessment is to determine whether or not someone is schizophrenic, then you want to use an assessment that renders a result that is consistent for each person and that parses carefully the people who really are schizophrenic from those who just act like it. That’s what reliability is all about. Moreover, you want to have an assessment that considers a generally accepted definition of schizophrenia – a particular diagnosis of a mental condition – not just a collection of irritating habits that you associate with someone you don’t like. In sum, traditional assessments must be consistent in their application and they must pair their labels with generally accepted scientific practice. Their purpose is to label precisely the person being examined with a specific diagnosis.
This is emphatically NOT the purpose of the Renewal Coaching assessments. Rather than rendering a judgment in scientific terms, the purpose of the Renewal Coaching assessments is to stimulate reflection. That is why, for example, we do not merely use the numerical scales for the 70 “closed-end” (that is, 1 to 10 Likert scale items). We also encourage the use of open-ended items that are designed for personal reflection. It is, in fact, the very personal and variable nature of these responses that makes the Renewal Coaching assessments quite different from traditional assessments that depend upon consistency. We emphatically do NOT claim to be consistent – but rather, hope that each question leads to different responses for each person.
We have gathered statistical research on our assessments and have, for example, already learned about astonishing and important results in which certain responses on the assessments are associated with certain degrees of personal and job satisfaction. Nevertheless, we insist that traditional claims of “reliability” or consistency are not appropriate for Renewal Coaching and therefore we do not make these claims. Our goal is not evaluation or adjudication – and any use of Renewal Coaching assessments for evaluation is inappropriate. Rather, our goal is the stimulation of reflection for personal and organizational development.
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