Methodology

How PRISM measures

Every one of the 29 dimensions, the instrument behind it, and how a response becomes a score. What has not been validated yet is named at the bottom.

Measured today: 29 of 29. This page is generated from the scoring model itself, so it cannot drift from what the product actually does.

Cognitive6

Behavioural5

Personality5

Interests6

Work values6

Situational judgement1

The instruments and their sources

Every PRISM instrument comes from one of three sources: public-domain research item pools (the personality questionnaire), published laboratory paradigms re-implemented by PRISM's own engines (all seven games and the matrix format), or PRISM-authored content built on a published model (interests, values, judgment scenarios, and the reasoning items), written for the MENA student context and bilingually reviewed.

Several of the games implement the same published paradigms that commercial batteries sell — CANTAB, the "Cambridge games", ships the Tower of London as its Stockings of Cambridge and a set-shifting task in the Wisconsin family; the NIH Toolbox ships a flanker. PRISM implements the original published paradigms directly from the primary literature, with its own engines and scoring — it does not license, clone, or embed any commercial battery, and none of the batteries named here endorse PRISM.

Questionnaires4

  • Personality questionnaire (Big Five)

    Short statements rated on agreement, measuring the five broad personality domains and the narrower traits PRISM reports.

    Scientific origin:
    The Big Five model and its public research markers (Goldberg, 1992), and the International Personality Item Pool — the public-domain pool used in thousands of published studies (Goldberg et al., 2006).
    Where else it lives:
    The same pool underlies widely used research instruments such as the IPIP-NEO and Mini-IPIP.
    PRISM's content:
    Items drawn from the public-domain IPIP pool, translated and Gate-2 reviewed for Arabic, administered as a balanced 40-item subset — eight per domain, at least two reverse-keyed each.
    • Goldberg, L. R. (1992). The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological Assessment, 4(1), 26–42.
    • Goldberg, L. R., et al. (2006). The International Personality Item Pool and the future of public-domain personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 40(1), 84–96.

  • Interests questionnaire (RIASEC)

    Would-you-enjoy-this items across activities, mapping interests onto Holland's six vocational types.

    Scientific origin:
    Holland's theory of vocational personalities and work environments — the RIASEC hexagon (Holland, 1959; 1997).
    Where else it lives:
    The same model behind the U.S. Department of Labor's public-domain O*NET Interest Profiler.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM-authored items to the six types, written for the MENA student context, bilingual and Gate-2 reviewed; 24 administered, four per type.
    • Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of vocational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6(1), 35–45.
    • Holland, J. L. (1997). Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.

  • Work values

    How-important-is-this items over what a job can offer — meaning, autonomy, security, growth and more.

    Scientific origin:
    The value dimensions of the Theory of Work Adjustment (Dawis & Lofquist, 1984) — the frame O*NET's Work Values inventory uses.
    Where else it lives:
    The six value families mirror O*NET's: achievement, independence, recognition, relationships, support, working conditions.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM-authored items on that frame; twelve administered, two per value. Authored in English first — the Arabic sitting shows English for this module until its own review lands.
    • Dawis, R. V., & Lofquist, L. H. (1984). A Psychological Theory of Work Adjustment. University of Minnesota Press.

  • Situational judgment

    Short realistic dilemmas — a group project going wrong, a deadline colliding with a favour — where the candidate picks the response closest to what they would actually do.

    Scientific origin:
    The situational-judgment (low-fidelity simulation) method (Motowidlo, Dunnette & Carter, 1990).
    Where else it lives:
    The standard selection-research method for judgment in context, in continuous use since.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM-authored student-world scenarios, bilingual, Gate-2 reviewed; keyed to the judgment dimensions by the scoring model.
    • Motowidlo, S. J., Dunnette, M. D., & Carter, G. W. (1990). An alternative selection procedure: The low-fidelity simulation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(6), 640–647.

Reasoning tests3

  • Matrix reasoning

    A grid of shapes with one cell missing; the candidate infers the rule and picks what completes it. Language-free by design.

    Scientific origin:
    The progressive-matrices paradigm (Raven, 1938) — the canonical format for fluid reasoning in the Cattell–Horn–Carroll model (Carroll, 1993).
    Where else it lives:
    The same format used across major ability batteries; Raven's own item sets remain commercial and are not used here.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM's own bank of rule-based matrix items, difficulty-banded; each sitting administers a fixed easy-to-hard ramp of 12.
    • Raven, J. C. (1938). Progressive Matrices: A Perceptual Test of Intelligence. H.K. Lewis, London.
    • Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies. Cambridge University Press.

  • Numerical reasoning

    Short quantitative problems — series, proportions, reading figures — under no time pressure per item.

    Scientific origin:
    The quantitative-reasoning stratum of the Cattell–Horn–Carroll model of cognitive abilities (Carroll, 1993).
    Where else it lives:
    The standard aptitude format used across graduate and employment testing.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM-authored, difficulty-banded items, bilingual and Gate-2 reviewed; eight administered per sitting in a fixed ramp.
    • Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies. Cambridge University Press.

  • Verbal reasoning

    Short passages and statements; the candidate judges what follows, what contradicts, and what cannot be told.

    Scientific origin:
    The verbal-comprehension stratum of the Cattell–Horn–Carroll model (Carroll, 1993).
    Where else it lives:
    The standard verbal-critical-reasoning format in employment testing.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM-authored, difficulty-banded, bilingual, Gate-2 reviewed; eight administered per sitting.
    • Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies. Cambridge University Press.

Games7

  • Balloon game (BART)

    Pump a balloon to bank points; each pump risks the pop that loses them. Measures calibrated risk appetite from behaviour, not self-report.

    Scientific origin:
    The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez et al., 2002), the standard behavioural risk-taking measure.
    Where else it lives:
    Validated against real-world risk behaviours in the original paper and a large replication literature.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM's own engine implements the published task: seeded, deterministic pop points per session; adjusted-pumps scoring (mean pumps on unpopped balloons) per the original paper.
    • Lejuez, C. W., et al. (2002). Evaluation of a behavioral measure of risk taking: The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8(2), 75–84.

  • Focus game (flanker)

    Respond to the centre arrow while the arrows beside it agree or disagree with it. The cost of disagreement measures selective attention.

    Scientific origin:
    The Eriksen flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974).
    Where else it lives:
    The NIH Toolbox ships a flanker as its attention and inhibitory-control measure.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM engine, arrow variant: congruent and incongruent trials; the flanker effect is the reaction-time cost of incongruence.
    • Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16(1), 143–149.

  • Stop game (go/no-go)

    Tap fast for go signals, hold back for the rare no-go. Withholding a prepared response measures inhibitory control.

    Scientific origin:
    The go/no-go paradigm, in laboratory use since Donders (1868); modern computerized form reviewed in Verbruggen & Logan (2008).
    Where else it lives:
    A core inhibition measure across cognitive neuroscience and ADHD research.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM engine; scored on commission errors and signal detection over seeded trial sequences.
    • Donders, F. C. (1868). On the speed of mental processes (trans. 1969). Acta Psychologica, 30, 412–431.
    • Verbruggen, F., & Logan, G. D. (2008). Response inhibition in the stop-signal paradigm. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(11), 418–424.

  • Memory game (n-back)

    A stream of letters; tap when the current one matches the one from two steps back. Holding and updating that window measures working memory.

    Scientific origin:
    The n-back task (Kirchner, 1958).
    Where else it lives:
    The standard working-memory-load paradigm in cognitive neuroscience (Jaeggi et al., 2010).
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM engine, 2-back letter variant over seeded sequences; hits versus false alarms scored.
    • Kirchner, W. K. (1958). Age differences in short-term retention of rapidly changing information. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55(4), 352–358.
    • Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Perrig, W. J., & Meier, B. (2010). The concurrent validity of the N-back task as a working memory measure. Memory, 18(4), 394–412.

  • Rule-switch game (Wisconsin card sort)

    Sort cards by a hidden rule that silently changes; letting go of a rule that stopped working measures cognitive flexibility.

    Scientific origin:
    The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Berg, 1948; Grant & Berg, 1948), the canonical set-shifting measure.
    Where else it lives:
    CANTAB — the "Cambridge games" — ships the same set-shifting family as its Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM engine: the rule switches after a run of correct sorts; perseverative errors — sorting by the dead rule — are the core score.
    • Berg, E. A. (1948). A simple objective technique for measuring flexibility in thinking. Journal of General Psychology, 39(1), 15–22.
    • Grant, D. A., & Berg, E. A. (1948). A behavioral analysis of degree of reinforcement and ease of shifting to new responses in a Weigl-type card-sorting problem. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38(4), 404–411.

  • Tower game (Tower of London)

    Rebuild a target arrangement of coloured balls on three pegs in as few moves as possible. Planning before moving is the whole game.

    Scientific origin:
    The Tower of London planning task (Shallice, 1982).
    Where else it lives:
    Commercialized in CANTAB — the "Cambridge games" — as the Stockings of Cambridge; PRISM implements Shallice's original task.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM engine with the exact minimum-move count for every puzzle computed by exhaustive search; the score is moves used in excess of that minimum.
    • Shallice, T. (1982). Specific impairments of planning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 298(1089), 199–209.

  • Harvest game (the four gardens)

    Water one of four gardens each round; some bear fruit far more often than others, and nobody says which. Nothing is ever staked or lost — a quiet round simply gives nothing. Learning the generous side from feedback is the measure.

    Scientific origin:
    The multi-armed bandit paradigm — the standard laboratory measure of learning reward probabilities from feedback: four-armed bandit (Daw et al., 2006); probabilistic reward learning (Frank, Seeberger & O'Reilly, 2004). Gains-only by design: no wager, no loss, no gambling structure.
    Where else it lives:
    Bandit tasks are the workhorse of reinforcement-learning research across cognitive neuroscience and computational psychiatry.
    PRISM's content:
    PRISM engine: two generous gardens yield on 7 of every 10 waterings, two meagre on 3 of 10, +10 fruit per yield, positions seeded per session with exact per-block counts. Scored on the drift of picks toward the generous side plus a first-to-second-half learning term.
    • Daw, N. D., O'Doherty, J. P., Dayan, P., Seymour, B., & Dolan, R. J. (2006). Cortical substrates for exploratory decisions in humans. Nature, 441(7095), 876–879.
    • Frank, M. J., Seeberger, L. C., & O'Reilly, R. C. (2004). By carrot or by stick: Cognitive reinforcement learning in Parkinsonism. Science, 306(5703), 1940–1943.

Experience1

  • The mirror (reveal)

    A guided self-reflection moment at the end of the sitting, leading into the report. It is an experience, not an instrument: nothing in it is scored, and it can be skipped.

    Scientific origin:
    PRISM-designed narrative moment; no psychometric claim attaches to it.
    Where else it lives:
    None — it exists for the candidate, not the model.
    PRISM's content:
    Written and illustrated by PRISM.

How a score is computed

The exact band boundaries and the career-matching weights are not published here. The method is what makes the measurement reviewable; the constants would hand over the model without making it any more so.

What we have not done yet

← The science behind PRISM