About Our Survey

The Retirement Exploration Survey (RES) is designed to help individuals pinpoint their retirement goals and develop the means for achieving them.  The RES measures an individual’s self-appraisal on sixty items that collectively compose fifteen dimensions important to retirement satisfaction.  Participants rate themselves on a 1-6 scale, in two ways: first, as they view their “current status” and secondly, as to what they feel they will “need in the future/post career phase of life.”

Only one measured dimension addresses financial security. The other fourteen aspects relate to the emotional and psychological elements of this transition. A few examples of the 60 items are:

1) I have an optimistic perspective on life
2) I am direct in asking for what I want and need
3) My sense of self and esteem are not only related to work accomplishments

Some examples of the 15 dimensions are:
1) Coping Ability
2) Emotional Well Being
3) Work Identity

There are two versions of the Survey: Retired and Pre-Retired.  People define retirement in different ways.  If you consider yourself retired, please take the Retired version.  If you do not think of yourself as retired, please take the Pre-Retired version.

The Retirement Exploration Survey was developed from an initial pool of over 150 items. In tests of nearly 200 participants, items for each of the fifteen dimensions were removed if they were proven to mathematically diminish or not improve the overall reliability of the results for their respective component. The average of four different items comprises the score on each of the fifteen dimensions. All of the items have been objectively shown to be highly reliable indicators.

Your Next Dance Review, the customized, comprehensive report generated by an individual’s responses to the Retirement Exploration Survey, includes extensive explanations of results, and guidance on how to address areas of concern as they impact the ability of someone to create a fulfilling retirement or next phase of life.   In addition, the Review contains the Learning New Steps Workbook with thought-provoking exercises as well as a comprehensive list of resources.  Below is a segment of a graph showing results for the four dimensions which form a Cluster called Facing the Future.

For interpretive purposes, we assign a level of concern reflected in both labels and color coding: Red Light = Stalled/unable to move forward; Yellow Light = Caution/uncertain about how to move forward safely; Green Light = Go/ready to move forward. These are based on the variations in an individual’s scores. For example, if most of an individual’s scores cluster around 4.7 on the 6 point scale, it is likely that any score under 3.5 will be given a red light as an area for attention.