Situational judgment tests: An introduction for clinician educators

Abstract

Although numerous tools exist to assess the clinical knowledge and skills of learners as they progress throughout the health professions curriculum, the measurement of professional attitudes, and behaviors (eg, empathy, integrity, teamwork) remains a challenge for educators. Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are a methodology for assessing how an individual's underlying knowledge, skills, traits, and other attributes are expressed when making decisions about job-related scenarios. Studies have shown that SJTs can be a valuable predictor of future job performance among health professionals and recent research suggests that they may also be useful for the development of professional attitudes and behaviors. The primary advantage of SJTs is that they permit an assessment of these complex constructs among large groups of test-takers, making them an appealing alternative or supplement to more resource-intensive methods, such as situational interviews or objective structured clinical examinations. However, SJT development is a complex process and requires a set of knowledge and skills that may be unfamiliar to many clinician educators (eg, job analysis, assessments of validity, and reliability). The purpose of this review is to provide readers with an introduction to SJTs, including an overview of research to support their use, considerations regarding their content and development, and implications for practice and education.