Situational judgment tests (SJTs) require test takers to respond to hypothetical work-related scenarios. These tests can be used in college admissions to supplement traditional cognitive predictors of student success, predictors that tend to disadvantage minority applicants and may not predict students' performance in important areas like leadership, integrity, and social responsibility. However, what SJTs measure is often unclear, their criterion-related validities can vary widely, and few validity moderators have been identified. This study aimed to extend existing knowledge and the practical value of SJTs by considering whether certain situational characteristics of the scenarios comprising an SJT have implications for the test's validity. The situational strength (i.e., the extent to which a situation constrains individuals' behavior) of scenarios comprising an SJT was manipulated. Participants completed either the weak or strong version of the SJT, along with measures of biographical data, personality, self-rated college performance, and citizenship behaviors. Participants' high school GPA, ACT/SAT scores, and first-year college GPA were collected from the university. In partial support of the expectation that strong situations would constrain the expression of individual differences in behavior, the weak SJT was a better measure of agreeableness and openness than the strong SJT. However, relations of SJT scores with scores on other personality traits, biographical data measures, and criteria (first-year college GPA, self-rated college performance, and citizenship behaviors) did not vary as a function of situational strength. Implications of the findings, study limitations, and future research directions are discussed.
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