PhD defence W.E. (Wendy) de Leng

Recently, the lottery system for admissions to higher education in the Netherlands has been completely replaced by a selection system. Like other countries, medical schools in the Netherlands seek for effective methods to select their students. One aspect of this is the expansion of the type of attributes on which students are selected, since the performance of medical doctors and students is dependent on a variety of knowledge and skills. Therefore, new selection instruments are introduced that focus on so-called noncognitive attributes, such as empathy and integrity. One of these instruments is the Situational Judgement Test (SJT), which presents applicants with several challenging situations, followed by several possible reactions to those situations. Applicants have to judge the appropriateness of these response options. The implementation of a new selection instrument in a high-stakes setting, such as medical school selection, necessitates careful examination of the quality of the instrument. This thesis investigates the influence of various test characteristics on several quality criteria of an SJT for measuring the attribute of integrity. One of the findings of this thesis is that the method of scoring an SJT has a large influence on the reliability of the test and on the conclusion whether applicants fake their answers to obtain a better score. Another remarkable finding was that the quality of an SJT might differ between the correct identification of either desirable or undesirable response options. The results of this thesis provide guidelines for the development and use of SJTs for selection into medical school.

The public defence will take place at the Prof. Andries Queridoroom, 3rd floor Education Center, Erasmus MC. The ceremony will begin exactly at 15.30 hrs. In light of the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.