How the work style questionnaire works
Each screen shows two blocks of three statements about how you work. In each block you choose the statement most like you and the one least like you, and the third stays unmarked. Candidates report 108 blocks, two to a screen. It is a ranking within each block, not agreement or disagreement with each statement.
The hard blocks are those where all three statements sound like good qualities, so something you value has to go last. The FAA does not publish what the section measures or how it is scored. It is one of the seven assessments the FAA kept after validating 15 against controller performance, so treat it as counting.
How to answer the work style blocks
Take each block in three steps:
- Read all three statements before marking anything.
- Pick “most” first: the statement you would agree with most readily about yourself at work.
- Then pick “least”: the one that fits you worst, even if it is not untrue.
- Answer as you are at work, not as you imagine an ideal controller. Every block makes you give something up, so trying to look perfect only makes your answers inconsistent.
Worked example
A block reads: (1) I keep to a plan once it is made. (2) I enjoy sorting out problems on the spot. (3) I check my work twice before handing it in. All three are reasonable things to say about yourself, which is the point.
Suppose you would rather fix problems as they arise than follow a set plan, and you do check your work. Then 2 is most like you and 1 is least like you. Statement 3 stays unmarked even though it is true of you, because 2 is truer. There is no right answer to the block; what counts is that similar blocks get similar choices.
Tips for the real questionnaire
- Do not try to guess a key. The FAA does not publish one, and the forced choice is there to stop all-positive answers.
- Stay consistent. Questionnaires like this often return to the same contrast in different words.
- Keep reading properly. It comes late in a sitting of up to 2 hours 49 minutes, when it is tempting to click through.
- Think of your working self rather than your home life, since the statements are about work.
Practise the work style questionnaire on CogniPrep
Our version runs 36 blocks of three statements on 18 screens, two blocks to a screen, untimed and forward only. Instead of a mark it gives a profile on five working styles, decisiveness, emotional control, organised, take charge and learning focus, taken from the controller traits Airways publishes for its air traffic control selection tools (Airways is one of the two vendors behind the ATSA). It also checks how consistently you answered repeated contrasts. It is not the FAA’s key, and nothing in it is ranked.