Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

3-2015

Abstract

Whereas situational judgment tests (SJTs) have traditionally been conceptualized as low-fidelity simulations with an emphasis on contextualized situation descriptions and context-dependent knowledge, a recent perspective views SJTs as measures of more general domain (context-independent) knowledge. In the current research, we contrasted these 2 perspectives in 3 studies by removing the situation descriptions (i.e., item stems) from SJTs. Across studies, the traditional contextualized SJT perspective was not supported for between 43% and 71% of the items because it did not make a significant difference whether the situation description was included or not for these items. These results were replicated across construct domains, samples, and response instructions. However, there was initial evidence that judgment in SJTs was more situational when (a) items measured job knowledge and skills and (b) response options denoted context-specific rules of action. Verbal protocol analyses confirmed that high scorers on SJTs without situation descriptions relied upon general rules about the effectiveness of the responses. Implications for SJT theory, research, and design are discussed.

Keywords

Situational judgment test, knowledge, simulation, contextualization, validity

Discipline

Human Resources Management | Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources

Publication

Journal of Applied Psychology

Volume

100

Issue

2

First Page

399

Last Page

416

ISSN

0021-9010

Identifier

10.1037/a0037674

Publisher

American Psychological Association

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037674

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