Free ticketed event
The United States Department of Labor issued its Engineering Competency Model in May 2015, highlighting Tier 1 personal competencies, defined as interpersonal skills, integrity, professionalism, initiative, adaptability and flexibility, dependability and reliability, and lifelong learning. Unlike cognitive abilities and technical skills, however, there is no validated, commonly available measure of personal competencies available for engineering skills. This workshop will introduce Situational Judgement Tests (SJTs), a method of assessing personal competencies which have been validated and one that is being increasingly implemented for other professional schools' admissions and evaluation processes. After an introduction to SJTs, participants will engage in a series of hands-on activities and will be involved in discussing the relevant facets of different format SJTs which would best address their local mission statement and institutional goals.
Total Workshop Time: 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Introduction to Situational Judgement Tests
20 minutes: Welcome and attendees sharing of their local challenges with lapses in personal competencies.
10 minutes: Based on the shared stories, identify the challenges faced in developing assessment tools to measure personal competencies.
15 minutes: Overview of the current tools available to assess personal competencies, and where validation of these have been successful.
20 minutes: Introduction to SJTs, review implications of different facets of SJTs (selected versus constructed response, video versus written items, skill-centric versus task-centric) on predicting future performance, diversity outcomes, and resource allocation.
10:05 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. Break 1
10:20 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Developing a Situational Judgement Test
10 minutes: Facilitate a group discussion to determine the most important competencies for engineering, above and beyond the 2015 Engineering Competency Model.
10 minutes: Delve more deeply into the two main types of SJTs: selected-response and constructed response.
20 minutes: Provide two examples of selected-response SJT items, and two examples of constructed-response SJT items. Attendees would act as test-takers.
11:00 a.m. – 11:10 a.m. Break 2
11:10 a.m. – 11:40 a.m. Scoring a Situational Judgement Test
10 minutes: How to develop a scoring rubric to evaluate SJT responses. Provide examples for both a selected-response and a constructed-response SJT.
10 minutes: How does the method of scoring impact the psychometric properties of an SJT?
10 minutes: Construct a scoring rubric for the SJT items that were developed before the break.
11:40 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Wrap-Up and Discussion
Dr. Harold Reiter completed his medical degree at the University of Toronto, his specialty training at Princess Margaret Hospital, and his Masters in Education at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Aside from his radiation oncology clinical practice, he was Chair of Admissions to Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University for nine years, and Assistant Dean, Director of the Program for Educational Research and Development at McMaster for four years. He is a co-creator of the Multiple Mini-Interview as well as CASPer, and continues as an active academic in the research and development of tools measuring personal and professional characteristics.
Dr. Fern Juster, M.D. served as an associate dean of admissions for admissions at the New York Medical College for over 17 years. She was responsible for directing the Office of Admissions, reviewing thousands of applications and seating classes of high-caliber, well-rounded medical students. Dr. Juster, who is also an associate professor of clinical pediatrics, joined the faculty in 1986 and served as a chair of the Committee on Admissions since 1995. In addition to her administrative responsibilities, she is active in many medical student educational activities, including serving as director for all sites of the pediatric chronic care selective, and as faculty advisor for fourth-year medical students.