Indigo Assessment
The Indigo Assessment is a comprehensive analysis tool designed to enhance self-awareness regarding personal skills, motivations, and behavioral tendencies. Primarily utilized in educational environments, it assists students in identifying career paths and educational choices that align with their strengths and values. Developed by the Indigo Education Company, established in 2013 in Longmont, Colorado, the assessment integrates insights from behavioral science and education research. It evaluates three core areas: behaviors, motivators, and skills, employing the DISC system to categorize behavioral responses and identifying key motivational factors such as social and economic drivers.
The skills assessment encompasses 23 categories, helping individuals recognize their competencies in areas like teamwork, communication, and leadership. Overall, the process analyzes over 100 data points to generate a personalized evaluation, resembling traditional aptitude tests. While primarily aimed at students, the Indigo Assessment is also applied in professional settings to support employee development, including initiatives for veterans to aid in their transition to civilian careers. By providing insights into the interplay of skills, motivations, and behaviors, the Indigo Assessment seeks to guide individuals toward fulfilling and meaningful career paths.
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Indigo Assessment
The Indigo Assessment is an analysis tool developed to help people elevate self-awareness of their skill sets, personal motivations, and behavioral tendencies. It is primarily used in educational settings to guide students toward educational paths and career choices that best reflect their strengths, interests, and values. The Indigo Assessment was developed by the Indigo Education Company, a Longmont, Colorado–based organization founded in 2013.
Indigo Assessments generate overlapping overviews of a subject’s skills, motivators, and behaviors. The Indigo Education Company depicts the interplay of these three elements as a Venn diagram, encouraging subjects to pursue vocations associated with the overlap among all three areas.
Overview
In a 2014 press release, the Indigo Education Company introduced the Indigo Assessment tool by positioning it in an outcome-based context. The release noted that, according to the company’s data, almost half of the students who attend college abandon their studies prior to graduation. Of the college students who do graduate, the Indigo Education Company found that only about half of them go on to land a job that directly applies the knowledge they gained over the course of their postsecondary studies.
The Indigo Assessment was designed to help students identify developmental and career-related paths for which their strengths, goals, and personalities are particularly applicable. Applying multiple decades of behavioral science and education research, the assessment covers three interrelated areas defined as behaviors, motivators, and skills.
Behavioral assessments draw on the DISC system, which was developed by researchers based on the work of renowned psychologist William Moulton Marston, who is best-known in popular culture as the creator of the superhero Wonder Woman. DISC assessments categorize human behaviors into four classifications: dominance (D), influence (I), steadiness (S), and compliance (C). The Indigo Assessment applies the principles of DISC behavioral analysis to assess how a test subject would be most likely to react to various events and circumstances that occur in everyday life, and particularly in job-related or professional situations.
Motivational assessments analyze test-takers in the context of six key factors that researchers have identified as providing the impetus for most human undertakings. The factors include social, aesthetic, theoretical, traditional or regulatory, individualistic or political, and utilitarian or economic motivations. The Indigo Assessment strives to identify which motivator(s) resonate most strongly with a particular test subject.
Skills assessments focus on non-academic proficiencies in twenty-three categories, with results highlighting five areas in which the subject posted the highest or most relevant scores. The personal skills covered by the test include such areas as empathy, diplomacy, teamwork, written communication, analytical problem-solving, creativity, time management, conflict management, leadership, negotiation, and persuasion.
In total, Indigo Assessments analyze test-takers across one hundred data points and culminate in a personalized evaluation with practical applications akin to that of a traditional aptitude test. The Indigo Educational Company offers three different versions of the Indigo Assessment, each of which is intended for subjects of different age ranges and varying levels of personal or professional development. Though Indigo Assessments are mainly found in educational settings, some employers also use them as part of their internal professional development programs.
Bibliography
“About Us.” Indigo Education Company, 2023, www.indigoeducationcompany.com/about-us. Accessed 10 Apr. 2023.
Lepore, Jill. “The Surprising History of Wonder Woman.” Smithsonian Magazine, 2014, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/origin-story-wonder-woman-180952710/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2023.
“The Indigo Assessment.” Indigo Education Company, 2023, www.indigoeducationcompany.com/indigo-assessment/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2023.
“The Indigo Report Is a Revolutionary Career Assessment Tool.” PR Newswire, 15 Aug. 2014, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-indigo-report-is-a-revolutionary-career-assessment-tool-271374881.html. Accessed 10 Apr. 2023.
Williams, Wendell. “Dissecting the DISC.” ERE Media, 10 Dec. 2008, www.ere.net/dissecting-the-disc/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2023.