Psychology Ph.D. Dissertations

A Multitrait-Multimethod Approach to Isolating Situational Judgment from Situational Judgment Tests

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Scott Highhouse

Second Advisor

Michael Zickar (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Dara Musher-Eizenman (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Margaret Brooks (Committee Member)

Abstract

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) have been shown to be effective and useful organizational selection tools. However, researchers question what they measure. The position of the current study (and others) is that SJTs are both measures and constructs; SJTs have the ability to measure various constructs (depending on how they are constructed) but inherently assess unique construct(s) that some have suggested is judgment. Using the multi-trait multi-method design, the current study hypothesized that after all variance components of SJTs were isolated, evidence for a situational judgment construct would be found. Results did not support the hypothesis. Instead, the MTMM displayed method (rather than construct) factors as well as expected correlations between SJTs and other related variables. Implications for SJTs is discussed.

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