Taking the Situation in Situational Judgment Tests Seriously – A Situational Construal Perspective

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Stefan Krumm
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology ; Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2015 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 271360450

There was a broad consensus for more than two decades that Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) represent low-fidelity simulations, in which participants envision job-related situations and decide how to react to them. This notion was fundamentally challenged by several studies (some of which were part of the previous DFG grant). Contrary to the view of SJTs as simulations, these studies suggested that SJTs might not be as context-dependent as previously assumed.However, several scholars raised an important issue that could not be addressed in the previous grant. They argued that characteristics of a situation might still be construed correctly based on the response options, even when situation descriptions are not present. Importantly, they thereby point to the fact that test takers' situational construal has rarely been addressed in SJT research. The current grant proposal seeks to respond to these arguments and extend our perspective on SJTs by taking a close look at test takers' situational construal that is made on the basis of different components of an SJT. To this end, we integrate several theories on situation construal. As a result, we delineate and test situational construal of SJTs. Specifically, five consecutive studies are proposed. Study 1 has the major aim to test whether situation construal in form of the DIAMONDS dimensions mediates differences between SJT versions (e.g., with and without situation descriptions). Study 2 follows a similar aim but focuses on another form of situation construal that is situational strength perceptions. Yet another form of construal is targeted in Study 3 being there test taker’s perceptions of the to be identified criteria, a concept that has become prominent in research on simulations in personnel selection (referred to as the ability to identify criteria, ATIC). Study 4 examines the different forms of situation construal (as considered separately in Studies 1 to 3) in one study. Thereby we will not only test their relative importance and incremental contribution beyond each other, but we will also enable us to test our situation construal model in its entirety. An important finding of the previous DFG grant was that one specific piece of information (key information which created a dilemma) was sufficient to increase SJT performance substantially. Thus, an important question that has not yet been addressed in Studies 1 to 4 of this grant proposal is whether one key sentence is enough to enable accurate situation construal. Also, we currently do not know whether performance in such “one-sentence-SJTs” show substantial overlap with performance in full SJTs. In other words, by means of Study 5 we seek to establish the boundary conditions of situations in SJTs.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Singapore, Switzerland
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Cornelius König
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Jörg Felfe; Dr. Pia Ingold; Professor Dr. Martin Kleinmann; Professor Dr. Filip Lievens