ATSA Work Style (Personality) Test: What to Expect

The ATSA includes a work style questionnaire, often called the personality test. Candidates describe choosing, from small groups of statements, the one that is most like them and the one that is least like them. There's no published answer key and no single "controller personality" to copy. The approach that holds up best is answering honestly, consistently and at a steady pace.

The FAA doesn't publish the format, length or scoring of this part of the ATSA. The description below is based on candidate reports and on public information about how the battery was built, and it is hedged. The example statements are original.

What is publicly known

A 2021 Department of Transportation privacy impact assessment describes the ATSA as a battery that evaluates "the required critical knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics (KSAOs)" for entry-level controllers. "Other personal characteristics" is the selection-science term for traits such as work style and temperament, as opposed to cognitive abilities. The same document names the two commercial content vendors, Airways International Limited and SHL (the OIG audit calls them Airways New Zealand and SHL/CEB), and explains that scores from both vendors' subtests go through a proprietary algorithm to produce one ATSA score. Candidates are then placed in a band. Pearson VUE's FAA page lists those bands as Best Qualified, Well Qualified, Qualified and Not Referred, and says you receive only your band, not an overall score.

The DOT Office of Inspector General's 2023 audit describes how the battery was validated. More than 1,380 certified professional controllers took the candidate assessments and were rated by their supervisors against performance criteria, and about 620 Academy students' results were compared with their final Academy grades. The FAA then kept 7 of the 15 assessments it had tested. In practical terms, the assessments that made the final battery were checked against how real controllers and trainees performed, not against a stereotype of what a controller "should" be like.

Personality measures have a long history in controller selection research. A 2003 FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute report, for example, examined several personality inventories alongside the AT-SAT, the ATSA's predecessor. None of these sources publishes the ATSA questionnaire's content or how much it counts.

What candidates report

• Most like me, least like me. A December 2024 account called it "a personality test which was either most likely or least likely." A July 2024 account said some questions "had pretty equal statements" that were hard to rank from most to least.
• Similar statements come back. A 2019 test taker described statements that seemed to reappear "said in a very different way," which pushed them to second-guess earlier choices. Showing similar content in new combinations is common in forced-choice questionnaires, so it isn't a trick aimed at you.
• It is long and tiring. The same 2019 account described it as the part that "took everything out of me," coming late in a session of nearly 3.5 hours.

We haven't found a reliable public source for the exact number of statement groups or the time limit, so we don't quote one.

Why forced choice is used

With a traditional questionnaire, where you rate "I am organized" from 1 to 5, applicants can simply agree with every desirable statement. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management notes that personality test items "may also be highly transparent, making it easy for applicants to fake or distort test scores in their favor."

A forced-choice format answers that by grouping statements that sound similarly positive, so you can't endorse them all. You have to reveal which ones fit you more. A 2021 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychology concluded that forced-choice inventories "show resistance to faking behavior," though they aren't immune to it. That design is why trying to game this section tends to backfire. Every option looks like a good answer, and you don't know which trade-offs the scoring values.

An illustrative example (original)

These statements were written for this guide. They're not ATSA content and are only meant to show what a forced choice feels like.

Pick the statement most like you and the one least like you:

A. I like to finish one task completely before I start another.
B. I enjoy meeting people I haven't worked with before.
C. I stay calm when plans change at short notice.

All three are reasonable things to say in a job interview, which is the point. Your answer shows a relative preference, such as focus versus sociability versus comfort with disruption, rather than whether you have a "good" trait. Someone could honestly put A as most and B as least. Someone equally suited to the job could honestly choose the reverse.

A. I double-check my work even when I'm confident it's right.
B. I make decisions quickly when a situation calls for it.
C. I prefer clear rules to figuring things out as I go.

Here it's tempting to decide that controllers "must" be all three and agonize over the order. You can't know how the scoring weighs these against each other, and the next group will pair them with different statements. Your honest, consistent pattern is the only strategy that stays coherent across the whole questionnaire.

How to approach it

Answer as you are at work or school, not as an ideal

Think about how you've actually behaved in jobs, classes, teams or volunteering over the last few years. This keeps your answers anchored to real behavior instead of shifting with how you feel about a particular statement in the moment.

Don't try to reverse-engineer a controller profile

Nothing public says what the FAA's scoring looks for, and the validation work compared results with supervisor ratings of a stratified random sample of certified controllers, according to the OIG. Guessing at a profile adds cognitive load, slows you down and makes your pattern less consistent, which is the opposite of what you want.

Go with your first reasonable read

When two statements feel equally true, pick the one that is slightly more true and move on. In the candidate accounts we reviewed, the difficulty people described was fatigue and second-guessing, not any single hard item.

Don't chase consistency with past answers

When a statement looks familiar, answer it on its own terms against the statements it's grouped with now. If your answers come from how you actually behave, they'll be consistent without you tracking them.

Protect your energy

Candidates usually report the questionnaire coming after hours of demanding sections. Use your permitted break time sensibly. Pearson VUE's page allowed up to 30 minutes of breaks in total. Keep a steady rhythm so tiredness doesn't turn into careless clicking.

What this section is not

The work style questionnaire isn't a clinical or psychological evaluation. Those come later: the 2026 USAJOBS trainee announcement (FAA-ATO-26-ALLSRCE-97350) says selected applicants must obtain medical clearance "including a psychological assessment, drug test, and comprehensive medical evaluation." The FAA's medical standards for controller applicants are published separately on its qualifications page. According to the DOT's privacy impact assessment, the ATSA's subtest scores feed into one combined score.

Can you practice for a personality questionnaire?

You can't practice your way into a different personality, and you shouldn't try. Getting familiar with the format still helps. Knowing how a most/least choice works, how long a long questionnaire feels and how to keep your pace steady reduces surprise and fatigue on test day. The FAA's position is that the ATSA is an aptitude assessment for which no preparation is necessary, and it doesn't endorse any practice test.

Our work style demo lets you try the forced-choice format with original statements. It doesn't claim to predict your ATSA result, and there's no "right" profile to aim for. The Complete plan includes it alongside the other six sections and full timed mocks (see pricing). For the rest of the battery, start with the ATSA overview or how to prepare for the ATSA, and see ATSA score bands for what happens after testing.

Frequently asked questions

Can you fail the ATSA personality test on its own?

The FAA hasn't published whether the work style component has its own cutoff. The public description is that subtest scores from both vendors are combined by a proprietary algorithm into a single ATSA score, which places you in a band. You don't receive section scores.

Should I answer the way I think an air traffic controller would?

We'd advise against it. Forced-choice formats are designed to make that hard, the scoring key isn't public, and the assessments were validated against real controllers' performance rather than a stereotype. Honest, consistent answers are the only approach that stays coherent across the whole questionnaire.

Why do the same statements keep appearing?

Candidates report seeing similar statements in different groupings. Forced-choice questionnaires commonly pair statements in several combinations to build a stable picture of your preferences. Answer each group on its own terms.

Is this the same as the psychological evaluation?

No. The questionnaire is part of the ATSA. A separate psychological assessment is part of medical clearance for applicants who move forward, according to the 2026 trainee announcement on USAJOBS.