Situational Judgement Testing (SJT) in Licentiate Assessment in Canada

They don’t ask what the best way to do something in general is, rather they ask ‘how would you act in this particular situation?’ SJTs are complex assessment tools – a wrong answer does not map to a single gap in knowledge or skill but to a failure somewhere in the interactions of their interpretation, knowledge, and decision-making in the situation presented to them. Thus, while SJTs are closer to practice (for instance according to Miller’s pyramid)1 than knowledge testing instruments such as MCQs (and can therefore be argued to have good inferential validity), quite what they are assessing other than the aggregate and vague construct of judgment is often left unspecified.

In order to answer our question of what role SJTs might play in licentiate assessment, we explore: 1) what they can and cannot do, 2) what their affordances can offer licentiate assessment, and 3) how practically they might be employed in licentiate assessment. While the main thrust of this paper is about using SJTs in LMCC exams, we also hope that MCC will consider some of the recommendations that may pertain to various forms of ongoing professional assessment and revalidation.