Effects of response instructions on situational judgment test performance in operational selection and developmental contexts

Susceptibility to faking is a key issue in the operational use of SJTs. We administered an SJT with both knowledge-based (“should do”) and behavioral (“would do”) response instructions in a low-stakes developmental context to 946 current medical residents and in a high-stakes selection context to 275 applicants to medical residency programs. Results indicated that (a) controlling for instruction condition, SJT scores were higher in the selection context and (b) controlling for context, SJT scores were lower in the behavioral instruction condition. However, instruction condition moderated the effect of faking on SJTs in these contexts, such that differences between SJT scores in the “would do” and “should do” instruction conditions were greater in the developmental versus selection context. Implications are discussed.