Patton is an app written by Dr. David Patton based on the patterns of successful behaviour from the psychology of success. It is aimed primarily at helping university students to firstly, be even more successful in their studies, and secondly, helping them to choose a career that they will not only find fulfilling but which allows them to use their core strengths to get maximum results.
Like all key leaders and champions of any industry, the first step to such a reality is to become aware of your key strengths, capacities and preferences. This awareness is crucial to helping you to create individualised habits, rules and patterns of behaviour whilst at university and in the workplace to create optimum results. Research shows that those who are most fulfilled and effective are those who have a very clear alignment between who they are and how they do things.
As part of the app experience you will complete 3 instruments: learning styles, personality and team roles. You will then receive 3 reports based upon your answers. Each report will highlight your unique contributions, provide you with tips relating to practices that will aid you to become more effective in that area and provide pointers of where you may need to develop further.
Learning Styles Instrument
The learning styles instrument seeks to help an individual better understand their own preferences and strengths in relation to how they best learn and consume knowledge. Some people learn most through the consumption of visual knowledge forms. Some people learn most through the consumption of auditory or spoken knowledge forms. Whilst others learn most through the consumption of kinaesthetic knowledge forms. There is no better or worse learning style to have. The key is to be aware of your preference and then tailor your learning methods and experiences to best suit your preference.
Personality Instrument
Myers Briggs refined the work of Psychologist Carl Jung and tried to make them applicable to the lives of everyday people. The assessment explores your innate and natural preferences along 4 main dimensions:
Favourite world: Where do you get and focus your energy and attention?
Information: what type of information do you prefer and trust?
Decisions: how do you come to make the decisions that you do?
Lifestyle: How do you prefer to order your world?
Each dimension will sort you into one of two categories, so that by the end you will have 4 identified preferences that will be represented as a 4-letter combination. There are 16 4-letter combinations or personality types. Once you know your type you will better understand yourself, your preferences and strengths as well as being able to better appreciate people who have different preferences.
Team Roles Instrument
We all have a unique contribution to make in group work or a team. Meredith Belbin’s research identified 9 key team roles. This assessment will help you better understand what your natural strengths are when you work in a group/team. It will also help you become aware of your development areas or areas to ‘watch out for’ and manage more effectively.
Knowing your team role will allow you to be more effective and confident in your role but will also aid your appreciation that other people may have roles that are different to yours. It will also aid your appreciation that people with different abilities are needed at different stages of a project or task to be truly effective.
About Dr. David Patton
Dr. David Patton is a trained and accredited MBTI personality consultant, Belbin team roles consultant and a qualified Life Coach. He has worked as a Careers Coach and is a Principal Lecturer in Criminology. He is currently responsible for student experience for the School of Social, Psychological & Communication Sciences at Leeds Beckett University.