The Role of Situations in Situational Judgment Tests: Effects on Construct Saturation, Predictive Validity, and Applicant Perceptions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Schapers, Philipp; Mussel, Patrick; Lievens, Filip; Koenig, Cornelius J.; Freudenstein, Jan-Philipp; Krumm, Stefan
• 署名单位: Singapore Management University; Free University of Berlin; Saarland University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/apl0000457
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 800-818
• 关键词: Situational Judgment Test; validity; Contextualization; situation construal

摘要

Recent theorizing and empirical evidence suggesting that Situational Judgment Tests (SDI's) are more context-independent than previously thought has sparked a debate about the role of situation descriptions in S.M. To contribute to this debate and add to our understanding of how SJTs work, this article conceptually embeds SJT performance in a situation construal model and examines the effects of situation descriptions on the construct saturation and predictive validity of SJT scores, as well as on applicant perceptions. Across two studies (N = 1,092 and 578) and different Sri's, personality and cognitive ability were equally important determinants of SJT performance regardless of whether situation descriptions were presented or omitted. The effects of removing situation descriptions on the criterion-related validity of SJT scores differed depending on the breadth of the criteria. For predicting global job performance criteria (in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior), SJT validity was not significantly affected, whereas it decreased for predicting more specific criteria (interpersonal adaptability, efficacy for teamwork). Finally, the effects of omitting situation descriptions in SJTs on applicant perceptions were either negligible or small. Implications for SJT theory, research, and design are discussed.