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A response to Dr. Belbin's reply. (comments on Meredith R. Belbin, Journal of Occupational

and Organizational Psychology, vol 66, p 259, Sep 1993)

Furnham, A., H. Steele, and D. Pendleton. "A response to Dr. Belbin's reply. (comments on Meredith R. Belbin,
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, vol 66, p 259, Sep 1993)." Journal of Occupational and
Organizational Psychology 66.n3 (Sept 1993): 261(1). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. CAPES. 7 Mar. 2007
<http://find.galegroup.com/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=ITOF&docId

Texto completo:COPYRIGHT British Psychological Society (UK) 1993

Belbin has argued that his questionnaire, the Team Role Self Perception Inventory was a ~quick and useful way of
intimating to readers what their own team roles might be'. No doubt that is true and accounts, in part, for the success
of his 1981 book. But to our certain knowledge, a number of commercial organizations and management
consultancies use it not only in training courses, but in actual team building and development. This despite the fact
the norms for the test are weak. Whether it has been designed for this purpose or not, it is crucial therefore that it is
psychometrically acceptable. It would be unfortunate if important organizational decisions were made on the basis of
data from an unreliable or invalid measure! Notwithstanding the popularity of Dr Belbin's book and questionnaire
very little published, disinterested research has been done on it. We searched the Social Science Citation Index from
1982 to 1992 but found nothing. Hence our study into its psychometric properties.

Dr Belbin appears upset that we ~de-ipsativized' his test but we cannot accept his arguments distinguishing forced
choice and restricted choice; or that the response format is somehow more realistic. The problem with
forced/restricted choice tests, apart from their unusual statistical properties, is that because respondents are forced to
choose (within) themselves, the tests cannot be used to compare (between) respondents. It is then highly ironic that a
test that measures team role preferences cannot be, and should not be, used to compare actual or proposed team
members preferred roles! Also there is limited evidence that ipsativity prevents social desirability or acquiescence.

Furthermore, Dr Belbin appears to reject all non-ipsative measures when he argues ~self-rating on independent
scales yields little of value in industrial or occupational settings'. This amazing statement suggests that most
well-psychometrized measures in this area are useless whereas his non-psychometrized measures is not. It is also not
true that respondents prefer a forced/restricted choice method. We have administered 1000 BTRSI questionnaires
and found respondents frequently complained not only about the complexity of the method but also its
~unnaturalness'. It is simply not true that ipsativity of choice somehow reflects the real world more accurately or is
preferred by subjects.

Dr Belbin also is unhappy with us calculating the internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha) of his scales. Whilst some
have argued that internal reliability is an index of redundancy, Dr Belbin makes that mistake of believing that the
internal reliability of scales is only applicable to the measurement of traits. Any cursory glance at the occupational
and organizational literature on attitudes, beliefs, attribution styles, etc., should suffice to persuade him that internal
reliabilities are quite correctly calculated in all these instances. If as Dr Belbin expresses it, a team is ~a cluster of
related characteristics combining to facilitate the emergence of a role', items (eight in all) measuring each role should
be reasonably highly intercorrelated. Quite simply, in many instances, they are not.

Dr Belbin's final point is weakest of all. First he appears to reject psychometric validation at all. Second he argues
that his test results are less important than a ~larger database' that HR staff might have, but this is quite unspecified.
Either the test should be used or not in decision making and if it is, it should be valid.

We are surprised that Dr Belbin appears to take umbridge over our research. We believe his contribution is
substantial and his measure imaginative. It is far from perfect but has warranted our research time and effort.
Certainly our psychometric investigation has been far from damning. If this paper stimulates more published research
in this area, or encourages Dr Belbin and his team to revise the scale, so that it is more psychometrically, rather than
commercially, attractive it will have performed its task well.

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