title: Scoring method of a Situational Judgment Test: influence on internal consistency reliability, adverse impact and correlation with personality?
abstract: Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) are increasingly used for medical school selection. Scoring an SJT is more complicated than scoring a knowledge test, because there are no objectively correct answers. The scoring method of an SJT may influence the construct and concurrent validity and the adverse impact with respect to non-traditional students. Previous research has compared only a small number of scoring methods and has not studied the effect of scoring method on internal consistency reliability. This study compared 28 different scoring methods for a rating SJT on internal consistency reliability, adverse impact and correlation with personality. The scoring methods varied on four aspects: the way of controlling for systematic error, and the type of reference group, distance and central tendency statistic. All scoring methods were applied to a previously validated integrity-based SJT, administered to 931 medical school applicants. Internal consistency reliability varied between .33 and .73, which is likely explained by the dependence of coefficient alpha on the total score variance. All scoring methods led to significantly higher scores for the ethnic majority than for the non-Western minorities, with effect sizes ranging from 0.48 to 0.66. Eighteen scoring methods showed a significant small positive correlation with agreeableness. Four scoring methods showed a significant small positive correlation with conscientiousness. The way of controlling for systematic error was the most influential scoring method aspect. These results suggest that the increased use of SJTs for selection into medical school must be accompanied by a thorough examination of the scoring method to be used.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR), Erasmus MC, Room AE-239, PO Box 2040, 3000 CA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. w.deleng@erasmusmc.nl.
authors.forename: W E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: De Leng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR), Erasmus MC, Room AE-239, PO Box 2040, 3000 CA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Stegers-Jager
authors.affiliation: Medical School, University of Buckingham, Buckingham, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Husbands
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK.
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Dowell
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M Ph
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Born
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR), Erasmus MC, Room AE-239, PO Box 2040, 3000 CA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.|Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: A P N
authors.initials: APN
authors.lastname: Themmen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003099:College Admission Test; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008913:Minority Groups; D015588:Observer Variation; D010551:Personality; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adverse impact; Big Five; Integrity; Internal consistency reliability; Medical school selection; Scoring method; Situational Judgment Test