These six activities form the Gardening scale from the Oregon Avocational Interest Scales. The source calls it an interest scale, but its questions ask how often you have done specific things. TraitSpring therefore reports an activity-frequency snapshot rather than a gardener type or a claim about what you enjoy, know, or do well.
Inside the assessment
TraitSpring uses the public-domain six-item Gardening scale from the Oregon Avocational Interest Scales (ORAIS). The official scoring key reports coefficient alpha of .85 and states that all six items are positively keyed. IPIP explains that its posted alpha estimates are based on the Eugene–Springfield Community Sample, but the Gardening key does not identify the exact analytic sample for this coefficient. Alpha is a group-level internal-consistency estimate; it does not establish the accuracy, stability, meaning, or usefulness of one individual result.
The source response categories receive 1–5 points in order: Never in my life; Not in the past year; One or two times in the past year; Three to ten times in the past year; and More than ten times in the past year. All items are scored directly and summed for a total from 6 to 30. The report also shows the mean response position out of 5 only as a compact summary of ordered categories. Because the anchors are ordinal and uneven, that mean is not an average number of activities or occasions. TraitSpring’s less, mixed, and more positions describe locations on the possible response range, not source cutoffs, norms, percentiles, or population rankings.
6-item Oregon Avocational Interest Scales (ORAIS) Gardening scale
Lewis R. Goldberg (2010); International Personality Item Pool
Assessment v1.0.0 · Source links checked at publication on September 24, 2026
International Personality Item Pool — public domain; items and scales may be used for any commercial or noncommercial purpose without permission or a fee
A continuous summary of the response categories selected for six activities involving plant care, gardening, yard work, planting, flowers, and garden plants. It describes this activity list rather than gardening interest, skill, knowledge, identity, or access.
Important limits
This six-item self-report is a snapshot of response categories for a narrow list of plant, garden, yard, and flower activities. It is not a percentile, norm, exact activity count, gardening-skill, knowledge, stable-interest, motivation, personality, wellbeing, environmental-value, responsibility, home-ownership, or nature-access test. It is not a diagnosis or basis for employment, education, clinical, insurance, housing, safety, or other high-stakes decisions. Higher is not better, and lower does not establish a deficit.
Related reflections
Art & aesthetics · 2–3 minutes
Explore how art, music, poetry, nature, and performance appear in your self-description with a public-domain, 10-item IPIP scale.
Explore How Do Artistic Interests Show Up in Your Life? →Change, routines & exploration · 2–3 minutes
Explore how ten public-domain IPIP statements about variety, new beginnings, familiar routines, and change fit your self-description.
Explore How Do You Relate to Variety and Change? →There are no right answers. Choose the response that feels most accurate in everyday life.
Begin the assessment