Construct Validation of the ADEPT-15 Questionnaire in South Africa

Tevera, Simbarashe

Construct Validation of the ADEPT-15 Questionnaire in South Africa

Thesis / Dissertation

2025

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Organisational Psychology

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

Organisational success hinges upon the quality of its workforce, with talented employees serving as vital assets in driving productivity, innovation, and competitive advantage. Recognising the importance of identifying and nurturing talent, organisations often resort to psychometric assessments to assess employee performance and potential. The use of international tests has increased within the South African context due to the quality of their development process. However, lingering concerns persist regarding the degree to which these assessments measure the constructs they are intended to measure. This construct validation study examines the relationship between the Adaptive Employee Personality Test (ADEPT-15) assessment and the shapes (management) questionnaire, developed by Aon Assessment Solutions. The investigation focused on probing the convergent validity between the ADEPT- 15 and the Aon shapes (management) questionnaire, both firmly grounded in the Five Factor Model (FFM) theoretical framework. Training delegates in South Africa (N = 545), completed both self-report assessments. A correlation analysis presented the relationships between the dimensions of the ADEPT-15 and the dimensions of the shapes (management), and a series of stepwise regression analyses demonstrated the amount of variance shared between each of the measures. Key findings of the study revealed that the collective variance across the ADEPT- 15 dimensions accounted for by the subsets of the shapes (management) dimensions averaged 17.13%. This ranged from a minimum of 4% for the ADEPT-15 awareness dimension to a maximum of 32% for the ADEPT-15 conceptual and power dimensions. The findings offer valuable insights into the use of an international assessment within South Africa.