First hand experience with thousands of people who have been administered the Basadur Profile during creativity training and application sessions indicate the instrument has excellent reliability and face validity. People who take the Inventory on more than one occasion usually report stable scores over time. If scores have shifted over time (remember, the Profile measures "states", not "traits"), discussion almost always uncovers factors, which explain the shifts, such as job changes requiring correspondingly different thinking and problem solving modes.

Since the CPSP was first introduced (Basadur, Graen & Wakabayashi, 1990), an ongoing program of item replacement to improve its psychometric properties has been under way. The procedures used to identify the more and less robust items in the inventory are fully described in Basadur (1991; 1998a; 1998b; 2000). In addition to the original version (termed CPSP1), four progressively improved versions of the CPSP (termed CPSP 2, 8, 9 and 11) have been completed. The psychometric properties of each version are described and evaluated in the following section.

Extensive research confirming the validity of the CPSP has been reported, and is summarized briefly here. First, individuals' assessments of their own dominant CPSP style by themselves alone and in conjunction with an expert partner, agree with the assessments made by the inventory itself (Basadur, 1998a), demonstrating face-validity. Secondly, CPSP scores show convergent validity with both the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) (Basadur, Takai, & Wakabayashi, 1990; Basadur, 1991; 1998a) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Basadur, 1991; 1998a; 2000).