The Science Behind Psychology.me.

Dr. Miloš Kankaraš is a psychometrician who has led instrument design and validation for some of the largest cross-national studies in the world - for the OECD, Eurofound, and UNESCO - across adult personality and skills, students' social and emotional skills, early-childhood learning, working conditions, and programme evaluation.

• Social & emotional skills (OECD SSES). Co-authored the conceptual framework and is first author of the assessment framework for the largest international study of these skills, and led its field-test validation across about ~14,000 students in 11 cities.
• Adult personality & skills (OECD PIAAC). Developed the personality module for the OECD's adult-skills survey and sole-authored Personality matters, the paper behind it; co-author of the OECD's 2016 flagship Skills Matter.
• Early learning (OECD IELS). Principal researcher for instrument development in the OECD's International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study; co-author of two of its working papers.
• Workplace practices (Eurofound). Lead author of the overview report of the Third European Company Survey.
• Well-being in schools (UNESCO Happy Schools)Current. Lead researcher on UNESCO's Happy Schools project: implemented its international pilot study, and is authoring the forthcoming Analytical Report and Guidance Manual and finalizing its Diagnostic Toolkit instruments.
• Programme evaluation (UNESCO MGIEP). Sole author of the Evaluation Research Framework of UNESCO MGIEP (in press, 2026); author of 20+ evaluation studies of its education programmes.

These are real, citable works. The OECD and Eurofound reports carry DOIs or institutional identifiers and were issued by their organisations; the books are in print. Work not yet publicly released is marked in press.

• OECD Education Working PaperSole author2017
  Personality matters: Relevance and assessment of personality characteristics

  Kankaraš, M.

  OECD Education Working Papers, No. 157. OECD Publishing, Paris.

  Why personality characteristics matter for adult skills and life outcomes, and how to assess them well - underpinning the personality measures trialled in the OECD PIAAC pilot studies on adult non-cognitive skills.

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• OECD Education Working PaperCo-author2018
  Social and emotional skills for student success and well-being: Conceptual framework for the OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills

  Chernyshenko, O. S., Kankaraš, M., & Drasgow, F.

  OECD Education Working Papers, No. 173. OECD Publishing, Paris.

  The conceptual framework defining what social and emotional skills are, how they develop, and why they predict success and well-being - the foundation of the OECD study.

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• OECD Education Working PaperFirst author2019
  Assessment framework of the OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills

  Kankaraš, M., & Suarez-Alvarez, J.

  OECD Education Working Papers, No. 207. OECD Publishing, Paris.

  How the study measures those skills in practice: the assessment design, the scales, the instrument-development process, sampling, and technical standards.

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• OECD Education Working PaperFirst author2019
  Assessing students' social and emotional skills through triangulation of assessment methods

  Kankaraš, M., Feron, E., & Renbarger, R.

  OECD Education Working Papers, No. 208. OECD Publishing, Paris.

  The validation analysis: triangulating student self-reports with parent and teacher ratings to test the reliability and validity of the skill measures.

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• Research reportAuthor2023
  Assessment of Social and Emotional Skills in the OECD's SSES Study

  Kankaraš, M.

  Research report. Draft2Digital. ISBN 9798223387220.

  A full account of the instrument-development program: from the initial item pool and cognitive interviews through the Item Trials, Field Test, and Main Study.

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• OECD reportCo-author2016
  Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills

  Kankaraš, M., Montt, G., Paccagnella, M., Quintini, G., & Thorn, W.

  OECD Skills Studies. OECD Publishing, Paris.

  The OECD's flagship report on the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC): how adults' literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills relate to work and life outcomes across countries.

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• OECD Education Working PaperCo-author2018
  The Power and Promise of Early Learning

  Shuey, E. A., & Kankaraš, M.

  OECD Education Working Papers, No. 186. OECD Publishing, Paris.

  Why early learning matters and how to measure it - conceptual groundwork for the OECD's International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study.

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• OECD Education Working PaperCo-author2020
  Attendance in Early Childhood Education and Care Programmes and Academic Proficiencies at Age 15

  Balladares, J., & Kankaraš, M.

  OECD Education Working Papers, No. 214. OECD Publishing, Paris.

  A cross-national analysis linking early-childhood education and care attendance to students' academic proficiency at age 15.

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• Eurofound reportLead author2015
  Third European Company Survey - Overview report: Workplace practices - Patterns, performance and well-being

  Kankaraš, M., & van Houten, G.

  Eurofound. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

  Eurofound's flagship overview of the third European Company Survey: how workplace practices in work organisation, skills use, and employee involvement relate to establishment performance and worker well-being across Europe.

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• UNESCO reportSole authorIn press2026
  Evaluation Research Framework of UNESCO MGIEP

  Kankaraš, M.

  UNESCO MGIEP, New Delhi.

  A framework for evaluating UNESCO MGIEP's education programmes: the theory, methods, and design standards for its evaluation research.

Academic publications. Beyond the institutional reports above, he has authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters in psychometrics and measurement - spanning measurement equivalence and cross-cultural comparison, educational and personality assessment, and the measurement of creativity and intelligence. The full publication list is on Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Academia.

Books. Author of popular psychology and policy books - the “A Simple Guide” series and policy overviews, including:

• Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development: A Simple Guide
• Lev Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development: A Simple Guide
• Sigmund Freud's Theory of Psychoanalysis: A Simple Guide
• Policy and Research on Gender Equality: An Overview

See the full list on Amazon.

Reach & impact. His research has been cited 2,400+ times (Google Scholar; h-index 19) and read tens of thousands of times. On ResearchGate, his work ranks in the top 3% of researchers in Educational Assessment. His public talks and podcast appearances have reached tens of thousands of viewers.

Psychology.me's tests draw on established, validated models: the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality, public-domain item pools such as the IPIP, established reasoning formats for cognitive ability, Holland's RIASEC model for career interests, the Schwartz theory of basic values, and the WHO Quality of Life framework for well-being. The Big Five model of personality, in particular, is the founder's own area of OECD work.

To be precise about what that does and does not mean: the assessments here are not the OECD, Eurofound, or UNESCO research instruments, which were built for specific international studies. What carries over is the discipline - explicit construct definitions, transparent scoring, population norms, and honest reliability standards - applied by someone who has designed and validated measurement at international scale. The page that states those standards for every test is our methodology.

We show our work. Read the methodology behind every test, or learn more about the founder.