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

认真对待情境判断测试中的情境——情境解释视角

• 批准号: 271360450
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Stefan Krumm
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Arbeitsbereich Psychologische Diagnostik und Differentielle und Persönlichkeitspsychologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2014-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/271360450?language=en
• 关键词: Taking; Situation; Situational; Judgment; Tests

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.

在二十多年内达成了广泛的共识，即情境判断测试（SJT）代表了低保真模拟，参与者设想与工作相关的情况并决定如何对其做出反应。这一概念从根本上受到了几项研究的挑战（其中一些是先前DFG赠款的一部分）。与SJT作为模拟的观点相反，这些研究表明，SJT可能不像以前假设的上下文相关性。但是，几位学者提出了一个重要的问题，这是在上一个赠款中无法解决的。他们认为，即使不存在情况描述，情况仍然可以根据响应选项正确构建。重要的是，他们指出了一个事实，即测试者的情境结构很少在SJT研究中得到解决。当前的赠款提案旨在回应这些论点并扩展我们的观点。在SJT上，通过仔细观察根据SJT的不同组成部分制作的测试者的情境结构。为此，我们整合了关于情况构建的几种理论。结果，我们描述和测试SJT的情况构造。具体而言，提出了五次连续研究。研究1的主要目的是测试以钻石尺寸形式构建的情况是否介导SJT版本之间的差异（例如，有或没有情况描述）。研究2遵循类似的目的，但重点是另一种形式的情况构造，即情境强度感知。在研究3中，另一种形式的构建形式是测试者对被识别标准的看法，这一概念在对人员选择的模拟研究中变得突出（称为识别标准的能力，ATIC）。研究4在一项研究中研究了不同形式的情况构建体（如研究1至3中所考虑的）。因此，我们不仅将对它们的相对重要性和相互贡献进行测试，而且我们还将使我们能够完整测试我们的情况构造模型。先前DFG赠款的一个重要发现是，一条特定的信息（造成了困境的关键信息）足以大大提高SJT性能。这是在本赠款提案的研究1到4中尚未解决的一个重要问题是，一个关键句子是否足以实现准确的情况构建。另外，我们目前不知道这种“单句话”中的性能是否与完整SJT的性能相重大重叠。换句话说，通过研究5，我们试图在SJT中建立情况的边界条件。