Konstruktion und Validierung eines Assessments von Offenheit für Vielfalt für (angehende) Lehrer und Lehrerinnen

Zusammenfassung. Vielfalt und Toleranz als solidarisches Grundgerüst einer westlichen Gesellschaft wurden in den letzten Jahren – anhand verschiedener Themen wie Migration, Inklusion in Schulen, unterschiedliche Lebensweisen – medial intensiv diskutiert. Dabei fordert der demographische Trend zur Vielfalt Lehrerinnen und Lehrer zunehmend auf, sich mit der steigenden Diversität der Schüler und Schülerinnen zu befassen. Die vorliegende Studie beschreibt die Entwicklung und Validierung eines Situational Judgment Tests (SJT) zur Erfassung von Offenheit für Vielfalt (OfV) für (angehende) Lehrer und Lehrerinnen. Dieser Test wurde anhand von Fragebögen zu universellen Werten, Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen, sozialen Fähigkeiten, Autoritarismus und sozial erwünschten Antworttendenzen an einer Stichprobe von Schülern und Schülerinnen ( N = 219) validiert. Faktorenanalysen ergeben einen Faktor der allgemeinen oder generalisierten „Offenheit für Vielfalt“ mit einer guten internen Konsistenz (>α = .84). Es zeigen sich Zusammenhänge mit Universalismus, Verträglichkeit, Empathie und Autoritarismus, die bis zu 30% Varianz des Konstrukts Offenheit für Vielfalt über das Geschlecht hinaus aufklären. Der entwickelte Test kann in weiterer Folge dazu dienen, das Konstrukt OfV für weitere Forschung im Bildungsbereich sowie für die Berufsorientierung und die Aus-, Fort- und Weiterbildung von Lehrern und Lehrerinnen zugänglich zu machen.

Five Approaches to Understanding Interpersonal Competence: A Review and Integration

Social connectedness has been linked to beneficial outcomes across domains, ages, and cultures. However, not everyone receives these benefits, as there are large individual differences in the capacities required to create and sustain functional interpersonal relationships. A great deal of research has been devoted to assessing and understanding these differences, often focusing on how competent interpersonal behavior renders it more likely that one will succeed interpersonally. The current paper examines five relevant approaches that have emerged from personality (global traits), social (social cognition), clinical (social skills interventions), developmental (social information processing), and industrial/organizational (situation judgment) areas of psychology. A comparison of these approaches highlights important considerations related to bandwidth and fidelity, whether the focus should be on overt behavior or underlying processes, and whether to emphasize tendencies or their effectiveness. The review concludes with calls for greater integration efforts, which can capitalize on strengths inherent to different approaches.

Assessing distinguishable social skills in medical admission: does construct-driven development solve validity issues of situational judgment tests?

BACKGROUND

Social skills are important for future physicians and are therefore increasingly considered in selection processes. One economic assessment method from which different social skills can be inferred are Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) in which applicants are asked to rate behavioral responses in context-relevant situations. However, traditional SJTs have so far failed to distinctively measure specified constructs. To address this shortcoming in the medical admission context, we applied a construct-driven approach of SJT development in which test development was deductively guided by agency and communion as target constructs.

METHOD

The final version of the construct-driven SJT includes 15 items per construct with three behavioral responses. Medical school applicants (N = 1527) completed the construct-driven SJT, a traditional SJT, and an aptitude test under high-stakes condition as part of their application. A subsample (N = 575) participated in a subsequent voluntary online study with self-report measures of personality and past behavior.

RESULTS

The proposed two-factor structure and internal consistency of the construct-driven SJT was confirmed. Communal SJT scores were positively associated with self-reported communal personality and communal behavior, yet effects were smaller than expected. Findings for agentic SJT scores were mixed with positive small associations to self-reported agentic personality scores and agentic behavior but unexpected negative relations to communal self-reported measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Results suggest that construct-driven SJTs might overcome validity limitations of traditional SJTs, although their implementation is challenging. Despite first indicators of validity, future research needs to address practical points of application in high-stakes settings, inclusion of other constructs, and especially prediction of actual behavior before the application of construct-driven SJTs for selection purposes in medical admission can be recommended.

On the Construct-Related Validity of Implicit Trait Policies

In response to recent calls to incorporate Implicit Trait Policies (ITPs) into personality research, the current study examined the construct-related validity of ITP measures. ITPs are defined as implicit beliefs about the effectiveness of behaviors that reflect a certain trait. They are assessed by utilizing the methodology of Situational Judgment Tests. We empirically examined ( N = 339) several underlying key assumptions of ITP theory, including trait-specificity, the relation to personality traits, their context-independence, and the relation to general domain knowledge. Overall, our results showed little support for these assumptions. Although we found some confirmation for expected correlations between ITPs and personality traits, most of the observed variance in ITP measures was either method-specific or due to measurement error. We conclude that the herein examined ITP measures lack construct-related validity and discuss implications for ITP theory and assessment.

Enhancing Personality Assessment in the Selection Context: A Study Protocol on Alternative Measures and an Extended Bandwidth of Criteria

Personality traits describe dispositions influencing individuals' behavior and performance at work. However, in the context of personnel selection, the use of personality measures has continuously been questioned. To date, research in selection settings has focused uniquely on predicting task performance, missing the opportunity to exploit the potential of personality traits to predict non-task performance. Further, personality is often measured with self-report inventories, which are susceptible to self-distortion. Addressing these gaps, the planned study seeks to design new personality measures to be used in the selection context to predict a wide range of performance criteria. Specifically, we will develop a situational judgment test and a behavior description interview, both assessing Big Five personality traits and Honesty-Humility to systematically compare these new measures with traditional self-report inventories regarding their criterion-related validity to predict four performance criteria: task performance, adaptive performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior. Data will be collected in a simulated selection procedure. Based on power analyses, we aim for 200 employed study participants, who will allow us to contact their supervisors to gather criterion data. The results of this study will shed light on the suitability of different personality measures (i.e., situational judgment tests and behavior description interviews) to predict an expanded range of performance criteria.

Using Mobile Sensors to Study Personality Dynamics

Abstract. Research interest in personality dynamics over time is rapidly growing. Passive personality assessment via mobile sensors offers an intriguing new approach for measuring a wide variety of personality dynamics. In this paper, we address the possibility of integrating sensor-based assessments to enhance personality dynamics research. We consider a variety of research designs that can incorporate sensor-based measures and address pitfalls and limitations in terms of psychometrics and practical implementation. We also consider analytic challenges related to data quality and model evaluation that researchers must address when applying machine learning methods to translate sensor data into composite personality assessments.

“Sweet Little Lies”

Abstract. Two laboratory studies examined the potential differences in the susceptibility to faking between a construct-oriented Situational Judgment Test (SJT) that measured conscientiousness and a traditional self-report measure of personality (NEO-FFI). In both studies, the mean differences between the honest and faked conscientiousness scores indicated that the NEO-FFI was more susceptible to faking than the SJT. In Study 1, we applied a within-subjects design ( N = 137) and analyzed these differences in light of selected predictor variables derived from models of faking behavior. As a result, faking on the SJT was explained by cognitive ability alone, whereas faking on the NEO-FFI was also dependent on other personality traits that are associated with the ability to fake. In Study 2 ( N = 602), the susceptibility to faking was predicted by differences in faking styles. The results of the mixed Rasch model analyses indicated profound differences in the measures in terms of the way the response scale was used.