Abstract
Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) are criterion valid low fidelity measures that have gained much popularity as predictors of job performance. A broad variety of SJTs have been studied, but SJTs measuring personality are still rare. Personality traits such as Conscientiousness are valid predictors of many educational, work and life-related outcomes and SJTs are less prone to faking than classical self-report measurements. We developed an SJT measure of Dependability, a core facet of Conscientiousness, by gathering critical incidents in semi-structured interviews using the construct definition of Dependability as a prompt. We examined the psychometric properties of the newly developed SJTs across two studies (N = 546 general population; N = 440 sales professionals). The internal validity of the SJTs was examined by correlating the SJT scores with related self-report measures of Dependability and Conscientiousness, as well as testing the unidimensionality of the measure with CFA. Additionally, we specified a bi-factor model of SJT, self-report and behavioral checklist measures of Dependability accounting for common and specific measurement variance. External validity was examined by correlating the SJT scale and specific factor with work-related outcomes. The results show that the Dependability SJTs with an expert based scoring procedure were psychometrically sound and correlated moderately to highly with traditional self-report measures of Dependability and Conscientiousness. However, a large proportion of SJT variance cannot be accounted for by personality alone. This supports the notion that SJTs measure general domain knowledge about the effectiveness of personality-related behaviors. We conclude that SJT measures of personality can be a promising addition to classical self-report assessments and can be used in a wide variety of applications beyond measurement and selection, for instance as formative assessments of personality.
Highlights
Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) are low fidelity simulations that in recent decades have been widely adopted in the workforce for personnel selection [1]
Jackson and colleagues [6] evaluated these perspectives by using variance decomposition [12] to identify relevant aspects captured with SJTs. Their results suggest that situations explain little variance in the SJT responses [12], as do domains (i.e., 0–6%). They found that the majority of SJT variance can be attributed to ability differences between respondents (i.e., 48–67%), which might be in line with the original definition of SJTs as measures of knowledge
We examined the impact of the scoring procedure on construct validity evidence by relating SJT scores to other personality assessments, such as the Big Five Inventory [37], and on structural validity evidence through a onefactor confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the 18 SJT items
Summary
Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) are low fidelity simulations that in recent decades have been widely adopted in the workforce for personnel selection [1]. Numerous studies have demonstrated SJTs to be efficient–that is cheap and easy to create, administer and evaluate–and criterion-valid predictors of many work-related outcomes, such as job performance, interpersonal skills, or leadership (Mρ = .20-.30) [2,3]. As a result, it has become very common in the workforce for employers to incorporate SJTs as one of their tools for personnel selection [1]. Contribute to the ongoing discussion by developing SJT measures of personality (i.e., Dependability) and examine the construct validity of the newly developed measures
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