Situational judgment tests: From measures of situational judgment to measures of general domain knowledge

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are typically conceptualized as contextualized selection procedures that capture candidate responses to a set of relevant job situations as a basis for prediction. SJTs share their sample-based and contextualized approach with work samples and assessment center exercises, although they differ from these other simulations by presenting the situations in a low-fidelity (e.g., written) format. In addition, SJTs do not require candidates to respond through actual behavior because they capture candidates' situational judgment via a multiple-choice response format. Accordingly, SJTs have also been labeled low-fidelity simulations. This SJT paradigm has been very successful: In the last 2 decades, scientific interest in SJTs has grown, and they have made rapid inroads in practice as attractive, versatile, and valid selection procedures. Contrary to their popularity and the voluminous research on their criterion-related validity, however, there has been little attention to developing a theory of why SJTs work. Similarly, in SJT development, often little emphasis is placed on measuring clear and explicit constructs. Therefore, Landy (2007) referred to SJTs as psychometric alchemy (p. 418)

Prosocial implicit trait policies underlie performance on different situational judgment tests with interpersonal content

This study tests the hypothesis that situational judgment tests (SJTs) with interpersonal content reflect implicit beliefs about the utility of prosocial action for job effectiveness and that agreeable people are more likely to believe that prosocial action is effective. Two hundred ninety-four undergraduates completed four different SJTs with interpersonal content and a measure of Agreeableness. Results show that the effectiveness of response options in these SJTs is positively correlated with the level of prosociality they express and that because of their prosocial elements, scores on different SJTs are correlated with one another and with Agreeableness. These results shed light on the construct-related validity of SJTs with interpersonal content and point to the possibility that they can assess prosociality in job settings different from those described in their items

Will a Good Citizen Actively Support Organizational Change? Investigation of Psychological Processes Underlying Active Change Support

The present study investigated motivational factors of employees active change support (ACS). It also investigated good citizens response to the change by highlighting convergence and divergence of motivational factors between ACS and traditional extra-role behavior. The findings based on 166 staff responses and 346 supervisor assessments in a hospital that recently implemented a sharedgovernance structure suggest that active change support is a result of an active thinking process that involves perception of potential benefit from change but not necessarily the consequence of conventional predictors of extra-role behaviors (i.e., positive attitudes). The findings also suggest that good citizens are not necessarily the supporters of organizational change and that in actuality they confront motivational dilemma especially when they hold high quality relationship with their employer because they are reluctant to challenge the status quo

Relationships Between Military Morale, Motivation, Satisfaction, and Unit Effectiveness

Used behaviorally anchored rating scales, developed to measure morale in military units, to examine correlates of officers\u27 ratings of company and platoon morale with 614 US Army enlisted personnel. Several self-report measures of motivation and satisfaction with various facets of Army life (Job Motivation Indices, Survey of Organizations, Job Descriptive Index, Satisfaction Questionnaire for Airmen, Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, Job Satisfaction Index, Index of Organizational Reactions, and Overall Satisfaction Index) were completed by the enlisted personnel. In addition, information about administrative indexes reflecting company effectiveness was obtained. Ratings of platoon morale correlated most strongly with mean self-reports of overall satisfaction and somewhat less strongly with self-reports of satisfaction with narrower facets of Army life. At the company level, morale ratings were most strongly correlated with number of reenlistments and number of congressional inquiries into company conditions associated with complaints from individual soldiers

Behaviorally Anchored Scales for Measuring Morale in Military Units

Behavioral examples of how military units express varying degrees of morale were provided by US military personnel in the US and in 2 foreign locations. From these examples, behaviorally anchored rating scales were developed for 8 dimensions of group morale. They were used to rate morale of 47 platoon-sized units in the US Army stationed in a foreign location. Although errors of leniency and restriction of range did not seem severe, the ratings did show indications of halo error and only low to moderate interrater reliability. Despite these psychometric deficiencies, correlations with ratings of unit effectiveness and self-reports of unit members provided some evidence for convergent validity. Military units rated high on the morale scales were also rated high on overall effectiveness and low on frequency of low-morale activities like dissent, drug abuse, and destruction/sabotage. Members of units rated high on some of the morale scales were more likely to report high morale and intentions of reenlisting