The personal values scales test is inspired by various test concepts and theories. A good starting point for reading, and the basis for this test, is the following URL. 

 Values, Psychological Perspectives

There are plenty of other sources to be found online which have served as the inspiration for this test. Just google for personal values psychology defininition and you will find plenty.  https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Personal_values is also a good read. 

This test measures a person’s personal values. The items are presented in pairs of two statements. The candidate must choose the most attractive statement. This means that all scales are potentially hit and less desirable statements are valued as well. 

This approach has been favoured in contrast to for example sorting of a number of statements in the most applicable order, or selecting most applicable/least applicable statements in a list of statements. Reason is that this approach is : 

Less stressing for the candidate.

Less reading is involved.

The task presented is simpler.

Although more items are required the choice is made quicker. Total time needed for the test is therefore expected to be comparable to a test with less but more complex items.The amount of items needed makes answering the test in a social desirable fashion less likely. Because two statements are presented the candidate MUST choose so social desirability is further reduced. 

The items in this test are carefully chosen and presented in such a way that they will play a competition between the scales they score on. The same statement is however rarely presented multiple times in various items. The test ends with 2 items with 6 alternatives. Each of the alternatives scores on one of the 6 different scales. These items are experimental, but they do score as a regular item in the test. 

This test is intended for adults, does not have norms (highest scoring scales are dominant), and is designed to be culture free, suitable for international use and prepared for automatic machine translation. 

Use the following URLs to start this test. 

You can also copy one of these URLs in an e-mail to a candidate. When the candidate has finished the test a URL is presented that they can forward to a consultant. The consultant can then review the test results with this URL. 

PVS Test in English

PVS Test in Dutch / Nederlands