Big Five in the classroom and on the team

The Big Five test is used in psychology classes, leadership courses, team workshops and career guidance around the world. Nothing on this site sits behind a login, which makes it easy to use with a group: one link, no accounts, no emails, and a result each person can read on their own. This page collects what you need to run it with a class or a team.

Why the Big Five works in teaching

• It is the model the research uses. The five-factor model is the most studied model of personality, and the questions come from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), the same open item bank researchers use. Read more on About the test.
• Free, with no sign-up. Participants need no account and give no name or email. The test takes about 10 minutes for 120 statements.
• Available in more than 40 languages, so a mixed group can take it in the language each person reads best and still compare results.
• Open source. The code and the questions are open, so students can look at exactly how a score is calculated.

Share the test with your group

Copy the link below and paste it where your group already is: Google Classroom, Canvas, Moodle, Teams, itslearning, Lectio, an email or a slide. The link opens the test in this language and tells us only that the visit came from a teacher's or course leader's link.

Short on time? The quick personality test asks 24 questions and takes about three minutes. The full IPIP-NEO-300 has 300 statements for those who want the most detailed profile.

Compare the group

The simplest way is a group link. Give the group a name, and you get two links: one for the participants and one for the comparison itself.

Name of the group

Create group link

Each participant opens the link, takes the test and types the name they want shown. The result goes into the group automatically. With up to ten people, everyone gets their own bars on each trait. With more, you get a team table you can sort by any trait, plus a summary of where the group is alike, where it differs most, and who is closest to the group average. The comparison link can be shared with the group or kept to yourself.

Prefer to collect the results yourself? Ask each participant to copy the link to their result (the "Copy link" button at the top of the result page) and send it to you, then open Compare and add one person at a time: a name and the result link, up to 50 people. The names you type are stored with the comparison and shown to anyone who opens it, so use first names, initials or codes if it will be shared.

See what it looks like with a team of eight and a group of 24.

Talking about the results

A few framings that make the conversation better:

• Traits, not types. Nobody "is an extravert". Everyone has a position on each of the five scales, and most people sit in the middle on most of them.
• No score is better than another. High conscientiousness helps with deadlines and can get in the way of improvising. The trait articles explain each trait with its upsides and costs: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
• Percentiles are a comparison, not a judgement. The result shows how a score sits among the hundreds of thousands who have taken the same test, by sex and age group if the participant chooses.
• Sharing is voluntary. Let participants decide whether their result goes into the group comparison. Some will prefer to read it alone, and that is a fine outcome too.
• A printout helps. "Download as PDF" on the result page gives a clean print version for notes and discussion.

Privacy and age

• The site never asks for a name, email or account. A result is stored under a random id, and the link is the only way back to it. The details are on Privacy.
• Participants can delete their own result from the result page, in the browser they took the test in.
• The test is made for adults and is not directed at children under 13. Teenagers can take it, but personality is still developing at that age, so treat the result as a snapshot.
• Participation is voluntary, and participants choose the name they appear under; tell them before they start that first names or nicknames are fine.
• Anyone in a group can remove their own name and result from it on the group page, and delete the result itself from the result page. Deleting a result does not break the group: the others are still shown.
• Share the join link only with the group. Anyone who has it can add themselves. You can delete the whole group at any time from the comparison page, in the browser you created it in.
• If you collect result links from participants, follow your institution's rules for personal data. A result link is personal data for as long as it can be tied to a person.

Research and student projects

The IPIP items are in the public domain, so students can use them in their own projects. If you are collecting data for research, take the items from IPIP directly and run your own data collection, so that you control the data. The scoring is documented on About the test, and the source code is on GitHub.

Other tests that suit a lesson

All the other tests share the same approach: free, open, no sign-up. For teaching, these come up most often:

• HEXACO, a six-factor alternative to set against the Big Five.
• Career interests for guidance and career lessons.
• Character strengths as a positive, discussion-friendly complement.
• Logical reasoning when the topic is ability rather than personality.

We recommend keeping the health-related screenings (ADHD, anxiety, autism, burnout) out of classroom use. They are made for private reflection, not for group settings.

Questions

Write to bigfive-test@rubynor.com. We are glad to hear how you use the test, and what would make it more useful in teaching.