Utilizing Elaborated Situational Judgment Tests to Improve Selection, Enhance Training, and Facilitate Workplace Understanding and Cohesion

情境判断测验(SJT)被越来越多地理解为预测组织绩效的有价值的工具。然而，许多研究人员指出，它们在很大程度上未能代表为什么某些行动在组织环境中被判断为比其他行动有效，或者为什么受访者选择效率较低的行动。该项目将重点评估精心设计的情景判断测试(ESJT)如何解决这一限制。过去的工作已经详细说明，ESJTS提供了一种途径，以图形因果模型的形式表示一个人选择对与工作相关的情况的不同反应的原因。该项目将探索如何使用ESJT来(A)表示不同人群(例如，不同年龄段、性别或种族的个人)如何理解特定的工作场所情景，(B)表示情景因素在改变特定组织行为的有效性中的作用，以及(C)提供教授更有效的组织行为的机会。通过将这些过程公之于众，EJST不仅可以用来提高人员甄选制度的有效性，提供更有效的工作场所培训程序，还可以促进创造更公平和更具包容性的工作环境的努力。在项目1中，将从在职成年人和专题专家那里收集对有效的SJT内组织情况的不同反应的预期效果的评级。这些评级将被用来创建新的指数，以衡量员工在多大程度上表明了专家对不同应对工作情况的有效性的理解。将探讨这些指数预测组织结果的能力，如工作绩效和满意度，而不是其他有效的预测因素。在项目2中，将开发一套新颖的情景，以详细说明具体的背景因素(例如最后期限、相对组织级别)如何改变倾向于一种答复而不是与工作有关的情况的其他答复的原因。在项目3中，将探索以ESJT为基础的工具作为教学工具，以补充MBA和其他专业课程的案例研究，以教授有效的决策，并详细说明不同背景和经验水平的人群如何以不同的方式感知和处理组织情况。然后，这些可以用来提供更具体的观点，以讨论不同的群体如何以不同的方式理解“相同”的组织情况，并向员工传授使对组织情况的不同反应更有效或更不有效的因素。该项目将生成公开可用的工具，用于从详细的情景判断任务中创建和建模数据，并在选择和工作培训环境中有效地利用这些数据。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are increasingly understood as a valuable tool for predicting organizational performance. However, many researchers have noted that they largely fail to represent the reasons certain actions are judged to be effective in organizational settings than others, or why respondents selected less effective actions. This project will focus on evaluating how elaborated situational judgment tests (ESJTs) – whereby respondents additionally rate the expected effects of responding in different ways to SJT scenarios – can address this limitation. Past work has detailed that ESJTs provide avenues for representing a person’s reasons for selecting different responses to job-relevant situations in the form of graphical causal models. This project will explore how ESJTs can be used to (a) represent how diverse populations (e.g., individuals of different age groups, genders, or ethnicities) understand particular workplace scenarios, (b) represent the role of situational factors in altering the effectiveness of specific organizational behaviors, and (c) provide opportunities for teaching more effective organizational behavior. By bringing these processes to light, EJSTs can be used to not only improve the validity of personnel selection systems and inform more effective workplace training procedures, but also to advance efforts to create a fairer and more inclusive work environment.In Project 1, ratings of the expected effects of different responses to organizational situations within a validated SJT will be collected from both working adults and subject matter experts. These ratings will be used to create new indices of the degree to which employees show an expert’s understanding of the effectiveness of different responses to job situations. These indices will be explored for their ability to predict organizational outcomes such as job performance and satisfaction beyond other valid predictors. In Project 2, a novel set of scenarios will be developed to detail how specific contextual factors (e.g., deadlines, relative organizational rank) alter the reasons for preferring one response to job-relevant situations over others. In Project 3, ESJT-based instruments will be explored as pedagogical tools that can supplement case studies in MBA and other professional programs for teaching effective decision-making, and for detailing how populations with different backgrounds and levels of experience come to perceive and process organizational situations differently. These can then be used to provide more concrete points for discussing how diverse groups come to understand “the same” organizational situations differently, and for teaching employees about the factors that make different responses to organizational situations more or less effective. The project will generate publicly available tools for creating and modeling data from elaborated situational judgment tasks, and for utilizing them effectively in both selection and job training contexts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.