Aston Business Assessments (ABA) is a fully independent company led by Professor Stephen A. Woods PhD CPsychol. The company was spun out from Aston University in 2010, and became fully independent in 2015.
ABA specialises in assessment and development of people at work, and our team of psychologists and associates have a wealth of business and academic experience in consulting, psychometric research, and delivering assessment and learning interventions in organisations.
In these areas, and at the core of ABA, is the application of sound science to make significant impacts in organisations and business. Research and development at ABA is led by Professor Woods, who holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Surrey, is a Chartered Practitioner Occupational Psychologist, and a leading world authority on personality assessment for business and human resource management.
Our Mission
Our mission is to make effective psychometric assessment simpler and more accessible. What this means in practice is creating scientifically sound, useable psychometric instruments that are clear, easy to interpret, and which avoid unnecessary complexity.
Our Philosophy
Science without complexity - At ABA we believe effective assessment need not be complex. We like assessment science to be applied clearly and simply.
Usability - Our personality measure - Trait - follows the latest findings of personality research, presenting it in a straightforward and easy-to-use format, focused on our client needs.
Simple yet detailed - In the design of Trait, we have captured all elements important to assessment of personality - whilst keeping it simple we have not sacrificed the detail our clients need.
Evidence first - We never sell products without research evidence that they work. We are open in sharing the findings of our research.
No gimmicks - We avoid including costly additions to our products for the sake of marketing or product differentiation.
Openness - Our culture is friendly, open, and honest. This means we are open about when our products can contribute effectively and when they cannot. We value building relationships with clients so that our assessments are used in the right way.