ABSTRACT
Although situational judgment tests (SJTs) have been around for more than 80 years (McDaniel, Morgeson, Finnegan, Campion, & Braverman, 2001), they have only recently begun to garner serious research attention. Given such sporadic research focus, it is not surprising that there is no consensus on how such measures should be developed, scaled, or scored. Indeed, as increasingly more research examines SJTs, an increasing number of varied means of developing, scaling, and scoring such measures are being used. In this chapter, we examine various issues regarding the development of SJTs. Specifically, these issues include determination of both the (a) item stem and (b) response option, (c) the effect of response instructions, (d) methods for determining the effectiveness of responses, (e) and methods for scoring SJTs. Table 8.1 provides an overview of the various issues considered in this chapter. As becomes apparent, there is currently little systematic research on any of these topics and, as a result, there are many gaps in the SJT literature. Consensus regarding optimal SJT development methods, of course, is a prerequisite to establishing SJTs as a means to measure a specific construct.
