The role of situations in situational judgment tests: Effects on construct saturation, predictive validity, and applicant perceptions

• Main Authors: SCHÄPERS, Philipp, MUSSEL, Patrick, LIEVENS, Filip, KÖNIG, Cornelius J., FREUDENSTEIN, Jan-Philipp, KRUMM, Stefan
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Situational Judgment Test; validity; contextualization; situation construal; Human Resources Management; Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6432; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/7431/viewcontent/Schaepersetal_2019_RoleofSituationsinSJTs.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Recent theorizing and empirical evidence suggesting thatsituational judgment tests (SJTs) are more context-independent than previouslythought has sparked a debate about the role of situation descriptions in SJTs.To contribute to this debate and add to our understanding of how SJTs work,this paper conceptually embeds SJT performance in a situation construal modeland examines the effects of situation descriptions on the construct saturationand predictive validity of SJT scores, as well as on applicant perceptions.Across two studies (N = 1,092 and 578) and different SJTs, personality andcognitive ability were equally important determinants of SJT performance regardlessof whether situation descriptions were presented or omitted. The effects ofremoving situation descriptions on the criterion-related validity of SJT scoresdiffered depending on the breadth of the criteria. For predicting global jobperformance criteria (in-role performance and OCB), SJT validity was notsignificantly affected, whereas it decreased for predicting more specificcriteria (interpersonal adaptability, efficacy for teamwork). Finally, the effects of omitting situationdescriptions in SJTs on applicant perceptions were either negligible or small.Implications for SJT theory, research, and design are discussed.