Validity of constructed-response situational judgment tests in training programs for the health professions: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol.

BACKGROUND

Situational judgments tests have been increasingly used to help training programs for the health professions incorporate professionalism attributes into their admissions process. While such tests have strong psychometric properties for testing professional attributes and are feasible to implement in high-volume, high-stakes selection, little is known about constructed-response situational judgment tests and their validity.

METHODS

We will conduct a systematic review of primary published or unpublished studies reporting on the association between scores on constructed-response situational judgment tests and scores on other tests that measure personal, interpersonal, or professional attributes in training programs for the health professions. In addition to searching electronic databases, we will contact academics and researchers and undertake backward and forward searching. Two reviewers will independently screen the papers and decide on their inclusion, first based on the titles and abstracts of all citations, and then according to the full texts. Data extraction will be done independently by two reviewers using a data extraction form to chart study details and key findings. Studies will be assessed for the risk of bias and quality by two reviewers using the "Quality In Prognosis Studies" tool. To synthesize evidence, we will test the statistical heterogeneity and conduct a psychometric meta-analysis using a random-effects model. If adequate data are available, we will explore whether the meta-analytic correlation varies across different subgroups (e.g., race, gender).

DISCUSSION

The findings of this study will inform best practices for admission and selection of applicants for training programs for the health professions and encourage further research on constructed-response situational judgment tests, in particular their validity.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

The protocol for this systematic review has been registered in PROSPERO [CRD42022314561]. https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42022314561.

Informations de copyright

Copyright: © 2023 Mortaz Hejri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

YSP, AHS, and JLH have no disclosures to declare. SMH, XP, HM, and AM disclose they are salaried employees of Altus Assessments which administers a situational judgment test called Casper. The authors receive no reimbursements, fees, or funding related to this study or its outcomes. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.