About Directionality
Directionality is a temperament inventory: a short assessment that shows a person’s personality traits as a mix of four communication pathways — Red, Green, Yellow and Blue. It gives students, parents, teachers and teams a shared, positive vocabulary for how each person communicates, learns and makes decisions.
You answer a short set of questions — 10 for elementary school students, 20 for middle school, and 20 for high school students and adults. Your answers are scored across the four pathways.
Online, it takes about 10 minutes and your results appear as soon as you finish. Schools and groups can also use printed assessment sets.
Most conflict isn’t malicious — it’s temperament. An introduction to the four Directionality pathways and how understanding them helps families, classrooms and relationships.
Red pathway
A person who is primarily “Red” has a pathway that is flexible to changes in direction and is one who seeks fun and adventure. This person takes risks as he/she makes decisions and is active, playful, spontaneous, enthusiastic, and daring.
Green pathway
A person who is primarily “Green” has a pathway built on logic and vision for the future. This person is logical and analytical. He/she determines his/her direction after careful consideration of various aspects. Each decision is made competently, thoroughly, and objectively.
Yellow pathway
A person who dominates “Yellow” has a pathway that takes him/her along an ordered and scheduled route using step-by-step directions. The person has a built-in GPS and is clearly focused on where he/she is going. They are responsible, loyal, structured, orderly, consistent and into closure.
Blue pathway
A person who is primarily “Blue” has a pathway that is harmonious and expressive, with a focus on helping others. This person may have difficulty making a decision as she is typically concerned about the feelings and response of all involved and is idealistic, friendly, and insightful.
Directionality identifies the Climate, Attitude and Relationships each pathway needs to do well. Just as a CAR needs four balanced wheels to run smoothly, people do best when they understand and balance all four pathways.
The study of temperament reaches back to Hippocrates around 400 BC and continues through Plato, Carl Jung, Erich Fromm, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Keirsey and Bates, and Dan Lowery. That research shows that people are different: they need and want different things and communicate in different ways. Directionality turns that research into a simple, colour-coded vocabulary that children and adults can remember and use.
Directionality was created by Dr. Michael Reece Carpenter, a counselor and educator with more than four decades of experience in prevention and student assistance programs. Today Directionality.Me is led by Dr. Carpenter and Stacy Benton, a career public-school educator and administrator.
Dr. Michael Reece Carpenter, a counselor and educator with more than four decades of experience in schools and student assistance programs.
No. It describes how you prefer to communicate, learn and decide. Every pathway has its own strengths.
No. Directionality is its own assessment. It draws on the same long tradition of temperament research as tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, but uses four colour-coded communication pathways that are easy for children and adults to remember.
Directionality teaches that the core of who we are stays the same — but, just as a sculptor shapes marble, we can grow our communication style and strengths once we understand what we and others need.
$7 for one online assessment. Printed sets of 50 are $75. Schools and groups can contact us for codes and pricing.
Take the Directionality assessment online in about 10 minutes for $7.