How “situational” is judgment in situational judgment tests?

Section: Why Does Situational Judgment Matter Even Without a Descriptmentioning

confidence: 91%

Why Situational Judgment Is a Missing Component in the Theory of SJTs

Melchers

Kleinmann

2016

“…Consistency in SJT performance for versions with and without prompts (Krumm et al, 2015) might reflect the previously noted issue that situational cues are still present and clear in the response options of SJTs, such that the two versions do not reflect a substantial difference in situational strength (i.e., general domain knowledge is important in both measures). This interpretation of the role of situational strength is consistent with Rockstuhl et al's (2015) finding that SJTs that explicitly ask respondents to judge the situation provide incremental validity over SJTs that do not, as well as consistent with studies showing the importance of situational cues in other assessment formats (Jansen et al, 2013;Melchers et al, 2012).…”

Section: The Role Of Situational Strengthmentioning

confidence: 97%

In Defense of the Situation: An Interactionist Explanation for Performance on Situational Judgment Tests

Harris

Siedor

Fan

et al. 2016

Whereas Lievens and Motowidlo (2016) propose a model of situational judgment test (SJT) performance that removes the "situation" in favor of conceptualizing SJTs as a measure of general domain knowledge, we argue that the expression of general domain knowledge is in fact contingent on situational judgment. As we explain, the evidence cited by Lievens and Motowidlo against a situational component does not inherently exclude the importance of situations from SJTs and does overlook the strong support for a person-situation interaction explanation of behavior. Based on the interactionist literature-in particular, the trait activation theory (TAT) and situational strength literatures-we propose a model that both maintains the key pathways and definitions posited by Lievens and Motowidlo and integrates the situational component of SJTs.Interactionist explanations of work behavior have received increasing attention and support in the employee selection literature and stem from a long history of research on person-situation models of personality (e.g., Mischel, 1968). The ability to evaluate situational demands predicts performance across assessment types, including structured interviews (Melchers, Bösser, Hartstein, & Kleinmann, 2012) and assessment centers (Jansen et al., 2013). Further, the ability to identify criteria for performance evaluation (broadly conceptualized as situational cues) has been posited as a key explanation of the criterion-related validity for selection assessments (Kleinmann et al., 2011). Given the evidence supporting a person-situation interaction account of performance in assessment centers and structured

“…So, this study showed that situational judgment could capture important predictive information. The problem, however, is that it is not measured in traditional multiple-choice SJTs, which echoes the conclusions of Krumm et al (2015).…”

Section: Recent Empirical Research Evidencementioning

confidence: 98%

Situational Judgment Tests: From Measures of Situational Judgment to Measures of General Domain Knowledge

Lievens

Motowidlo

2015

Self Cite

173

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are typically conceptualized as contextualized selection procedures that capture candidate responses to a set of relevant job situations as a basis for prediction. SJTs share their sample-based and contextualized approach with work samples and assessment center exercises, although they differ from these other simulations by presenting the situations in a low-fidelity (e.g., written) format. In addition, SJTs do not require candidates to respond through actual behavior because they capture candidates' situational judgment via a multiple-choice response format. Accordingly, SJTs have also been labeled low-fidelity simulations. This SJT paradigm has been very successful: In the last 2 decades, scientific interest in SJTs has grown, and they have made rapid inroads in practice as attractive, versatile, and valid selection procedures. Contrary to their popularity and the voluminous research on their criterion-related validity, however, there has been little attention to developing a theory of why SJTs work. Similarly, in SJT development, often little emphasis is placed on measuring clear and explicit constructs. Therefore, Landy (2007) referred to SJTs as "psychometric alchemy" (p. 418).To shed light on these pressing issues, this focal article builds a case for reconceptualizing SJTs as measures of a form of general domain knowledge.