The scientific background
The research behind the Stress Profile
The research stems from the studies of John G. Geier and Dorothy Downey beginning in 1993 at the University of Wisconsin.
2,400 respondents were exposed to 6,235 stress situations. These situations were consolidated into a cluster of 125, documenting 11 significant types of behavior.
This identified 11 job stressors and eight individual stressors as the basis for developing an actual model. The ongoing validation of the model is conducted by the persolog development centre in Remchingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
The model:
John Geier was a pioneer in the development of new survey designs instead of the usual “forced choice” method known from many profile instruments.
(Most/least choice boxes).
Methodologically, this opens for the use of the Likert scale, thereby deepening the degree of agreement/disagreement in questions. This means that the reliability of each question can be assessed one by one. Concerning reliability – the correlation coefficient is at a mimimum level of 0,8 on Cronbach`s Alpha for each item in the enquete, which is regarded as very high.