About NOA

NOA has been around since 1996. NOA was founded from the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit. It was founded to make tests more suitable for people from different cultural backgrounds.

Our mission is to develop objective and fair psychological tests for people from different backgrounds in terms of culture, language, age, religion or gender, based on scientific research.

Scientifically based work means that tests and assessments must not only be practically useful, but also carefully developed and evaluated. Psychological tests concern, for example, reliability, validity, standardization, fair interpretation and appropriate application. This is important for NOA because test results can influence selection, guidance, study choice or career decisions.

A culture fair test is a test that has been adapted so that people from different cultural backgrounds are assessed fairly. This means that cultural background is already taken into account during development. Make sure that questions are not determined by culture, take into account the use of language, conduct research into partiality, involve different cultural groups in the research and ensure that cultural groups are proportionally represented in norm groups.

NOA pays attention to diversity by developing tests for people from different backgrounds in terms of culture, language, age and gender. This means that test development and interpretation look at fairness, objectivity and suitability for a variety of target groups. For example, it is possible to compare candidates with different norm groups, for example with a norm group for people with a migration background or a norm group for the elderly.

Objective measurement means that test results depend as little as possible on random impressions, personal preferences or subjective assessments. An objective test uses fixed questions, clear instructions, standardized scoring and clear rules of interpretation. As a result, results can be compared more carefully and used in decisions about selection, guidance, development or study advice.