Daily Archives: January 9, 2014

What is the strengths explorer? Initial Review.

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Most people familiar with the Strengths Movement are aware of the big two: Gallup Strengthsfinder and the VIA Character Strengths assessment. There are others, but today we will focus on one designed specifically for younger students, The Gallup StrengthsExplorer, which they claim “gives teachers a tool to help identify the talents of their students, as well as actionable suggestions for utilizing those talents. Such information can help teachers to individualize the ways in which they respond to youths, and the manner in which they can teach most effectively. In addition, it provides teachers and parents a common language, goals, and sets of action, all based on the unique talents of youth.” The stated aimes of the Strengthsexplorer instrument is:

  • Help youths identify their positive characteristics

  • Help youths improve their understanding of self

  • Help youths develop from their areas of greatest talent

  • Improve parents’/instructors’ understanding of their children/students

  • Provide an opportunity for an important kind of communication between parents and their children (i.e., discussion of one’s unique nature, the positive characteristics/gifts that one has, and how those can be developed)

  • Provide the theme-based language that youths and parents/ instruc- tors could use to discover and describe positive characteristics 

This 78 item assessment focuses only on 10 strengths, reporting out a person’s top 3. Aimed at students in grade 6 to 10, is a welcome addition to the Naviance platform. Gallup has partnered with Naviance to provide this assessment to students at its 6000 school around the world. Certainly this has far reaching implications. See it in action here:

Gallup StrengthsExplorer in Action from Naviance on Vimeo.

What intrigues me most is how they linked it careers. I expect many counselors will like that. 

StrengthsExplorer Themes:

 

  • Achieving
  • Caring
  • Competing
  • Confidence
  • Dependability
  • Discoverer
  • Future Thinker
  • Organizer
  • Presence
  • Relating

So how does it work?

Spend about 12 minutes answering the 78 questions. The interface is clean, large letters. Each question comes up once, with no timelimit, but you cannot go backwards. Once completed, you will learn your top 3 (of the ten). 

The breif descriptions are straightforward and empowering. The detailed report begins with an eye-catching graphic.

Take a look at the detailed for Discoverer (“A thinker and learner, you are excited about exploring ideas and making connections. You like to ask the questions “How?” and “Why?”)

Discoverer

A thinker and learner, you are excited about exploring ideas and making connections. You like to ask the questions “How?” and “Why?” Questions are in your mind a lot. How does that work? Why did that happen? How did someone figure that out? You are excited to explore new ideas and ask questions so you understand the “how” and “why” of the things you choose to learn. You collect and connect information and ideas. It is fun to be an expert, and when you find a subject or idea you like, you can spend a lot of time exploring it. You might be bored doing things the same way everyone else does because you like to find new ways. Talking with creative thinkers is fun because it sparks even more ideas. People can benefit from your information and ideas when you share them.

Obviously this sounds a lot like VIA’s Curiosity and a bit like love of learning and perhaps creativity. But given that it comes from Gallup, perhaps it is best to look at which of the 34 strengths themes it combines. Gallup has their own Learner description that is quite similiar, but it has strong tones of Context and analytical. The descriptors are very useful and insightful for helping students understand themselves and counselors and teachers to gain insight. 

The action items are aimed at students. They are somewhat general and basic. 

1. Discoverer – Action Items

  •  What would you like to research? Maybe you would like to choose one or two subjects that interest you a lot, and try to become an expert on them. Could you know more than anyone else in your grade about something? Since you like to explore ideas on your own outside of school, try to earn credit for your research and have it help your grades.
  •  You are good at figuring out how things work. Try to create a space of your own where you can take things apart and see how they’re made, even if it’s just a special “project box” you keep under your bed.
  •  Find people who are interested in the same things as you. Start a conversation. You can teach each other what you know and learn to look at ideas in new and different ways. Together, you may discover more and more because your ideas connect and lead to new ones. Who else might like to join in?
  •  The Internet is one place to explore ideas. Find someone who knows great Internet sites where kids can do research, and make a list. Share the list with teachers and friends, and add their favorites to it. They will appreciate it, and you will have a growing list of places you can learn about new ideas.
  •  You like to know the reason why. You like to get as much information and knowledge as you can before you kick off an activity. Sometimes, others may have an idea and want to jump in and get started. You can be the “voice of reason” in the group who helps them get the facts and learn more first.
  • ——
  • Counselors and teachers would appreciate more direct suggestions on how to work with students. Perhaps a secton called “Working with Discoverers”
  •  Discovers often like school, especially when they get to explore actively. They will respond well to constructivist approaches, problem based learning and original research projects. 
  •  Discovers love to solve problems, be it math, or design, emotional or intellectual. find ways to engage them actively in the problems of the world. 
  •  Discoverers may love clubs that allow them to explore–Science Fair, Socractic Club, Quiz team–anywhere knowledge can be discovered. 
  •  Discovers may like to deeply inquire into a topic or broadly explore a varity of topics. Either way, they rejoice in new and interesting topics. 
  •  Discovers like to know why. Give them a context for why you are doing these things. 
    •  Partner Discovers with organizers to help them stay grounded in their exploration and Pressence to help them bring their research alive to others. 
    I think counselors and teachers would find this sort of information very useful. 
    ————————-
    The workbook that accompanies the profile ould rpovide some useful guiance lessons, but I wonder if the student would actually use it otherwise. Colorful, it contains a lot of fill-in the blanks self-reflection components. The suggetions again could be very useful if students did them. For example: “Ask your mom, dad, teacher, friend, brother, or sister to tell you about a time when he or she saw you using these talents.” and ”Consider selecting an action item that you would do with your mom, dad, brother, or sister. Then talk to that person about getting started.” The workbook is available here, along with the parent guide and the Educator/Leader Activity Book. You can read a review of a parent’s reastion to seeing his daughter’s report here:
    I had an “aha” moment when I saw his three themes: Competing, Relating, and Discoverer. They explained so much about who my son is. For example, we knew that he loved to win at basketball. But we couldn’t figure out why, if he wanted to win so badly, he kept passing the ball to whoever called out for it, whether they were likely to make the shot or not. Now we realize that in his activities, the relationships are just as important to him as the game itself. 

    ———————-

     One of the most intriguing aspects of the Strengths explorer is the link to career pathways:

     

    The links take you to Naviance’s already established career pathways. Unfortunately, Naviance and Gallup have given no indication on how the career pathways came to be associated with the indivudal strength themese. Strengths explorer was not designed as a career discovery tool (read the technical report here). So how did Naviance come up with this list? Does accounting really respresent a Discoverer? Do accountants really emobdy “A thinker and learner, you are excited about exploring ideas and making connections.” Do they “like to ask the questions “How?” and “Why?”” Apparently accountants do have particular types of personalities: 

    Although there are 16 different MBTI types, 42 percent of all accounting students fit into just two types according to the “Accounting Editors’ Journal.” Twenty-five percent tested as type ESTJ or extroverted, sensing, thinking and judging. They tend to trust what they perceive with their senses rather than intuition or gut feelings. They rely on logical thought more than emotion, and they prefer to make judgments about what they experience rather than simply experiencing life without judging. Seventeen percent tested as ISTJ or introverted, sensing, thinking and judging.

    Do the STJ personality types correspond to the Discoverer strength theme? Certainly a discoverer is a thinker and most likely a sesnor. As an ENFP…and a discover…it apparently does not fit for me. 

    While Naviance should make their details more clear, in adding the StrengthsExplorer Naviace provides a robust counseling tool. Naviance also needs to develop a report so counselors can quickly see who has completed the assessment (much like they do for both the Do What You Are and the Career Interest Profiler). Counselors will want lesson plan outlines and activities. Stay tuned and the StrengthsMining website will aim to help you.