Croatian Adaptation and Validation of the B5T® Big Five Personality Test
09/2026 - The B5T® Big Five Personality Test, developed by Dr. Satow, is a 72‑item instrument designed for professional psychological assessment, especially in organizational contexts. It measures the big five personality dimensions (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness, Agreeableness) and three basic motives (Need for Achievement, Need for Power, Need for Security). It also includes a response‑honesty scale. The Croatian adaptation was created in 2023 by Selekcija.hr to meet the growing need for a brief, digitally deployable personality and motive assessment suitable for recruitment, development, coaching, and organizational diagnostics.
Translation and Cultural Adaptation
The Croatian version was produced through a multi‑step translation process: 1) Two independent Croatian translations, 2) expert review and reconciliation, 3) back‑translation, 4) comparison with other language versions, 5) consensus on final item wording. This ensured linguistic accuracy and cultural appropriateness, especially important because the B5T is intended for occupational settings where items must not feel intrusive or overly personal. The test was integrated into Selekcija.hr with standardized instructions emphasizing honesty, four‑point response scale (“does not apply at all” → “applies completely”), and automated scoring and plausibility checks.
The validation sample included 1,622 respondents, with age data for 1,543 (mean age 36.37). The sample was drawn from real organizational assessments, not from a representative national sample.
Reliability (Internal Consistency)
All eight substantive scales demonstrated adequate to high reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .73 to .87 (Neuroticism, Need for Security).Factor Structure
To validate the factor structure, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were conducted on random subsamples. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted using maximum likelihood extraction with oblimin rotation, allowing the factors to correlate. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted using diagonally weighted least squares (DWLS), appropriate for the four-category ordinal response format. The CFA models were additionally replicated in the full sample. In the EFA subsample, a five-factor solution was extracted for the Big Five items and a three-factor solution for the motive items. The Big Five solution explained approximately 33% of the variance and broadly reproduced the intended structure. The motive solution explained approximately 43% of the variance. The independent CFA supported the intended structure overall.Construct Validity
The B5T was compared with several external instruments - Work Conscientiousness & Stability Questionnaire, Work Motives & Values, HEXACO-PI-R 100, Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS) - across overlapping subsamples. These results demonstrate strong convergent validity and appropriate divergent validity, confirming that the Croatian B5T measures the intended constructs without redundancy.Work Conscientiousness & Stability Questionnaire (n = 246)
- Neuroticism strongly negatively correlated with emotional stability indicators (e.g., resilience r = –.56)
- Conscientiousness positively correlated with Perfectionism (r = .43)
- Motives showed meaningful associations with leadership and control scales
Work Motives & Values (n = 76)
Strongest correlations:- Need for Power ↔ Power/Status (r = .70)
- Need for Achievement ↔ Power/Status (r = .62)
- Need for Security ↔ Security motive (r = .49)
HEXACO-PI-R 100 (n = 299)
Strong same-domain convergence:- Extraversion: r = .66
- Openness: r = .58
- Conscientiousness: r = .51
- Neuroticism ↔ Emotionality: r = .50
Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS; n = 411)
Highest convergent evidence:- Neuroticism: r = .74
- Extraversion: r = .67
- Conscientiousness: r = .63
- Openness/Intellect: r = .66
- Agreeableness: moderate (r = .46)
Summary
The Croatian adaptation of the B5T shows strong reliability across all scales, broadly replicated factor structure, theoretically coherent external correlations, and meaningful sociodemographic patterns. It maintains the integrity of the original instrument while providing culturally adapted norms and evidence of reliability and validity.Sources
Miloš, I.S., Ivaković, F., Jović, S. (2026). Croatian Adaptation and Validation of the B5T® Big Five Personality Test. Selekcija d.o.o., Split, Croatia.
Satow, L. (2020). B5T® Big-Five-Persönlichkeitstest: Test- und Skalendokumentation (ISBN 978-3-949416-00-2).
