How your situational judgment test score is interpreted

The way in which the situational judgment test score is interpreted is similar to that of other psychometric tests.  Your responses to all work-related scenarios are grouped based on what each scenario measures. Typically, there are several scenarios measuring one work-related competency. Then, each group of responses is compared to a benchmark that includes the scores of others at a similar job level and occupation to the one you are applying for. This enables employers to learn how effective your responses are in comparison to those of others in a similar area.

Your result in each measured competency is calculated relative to that of other people in similar roles. This means that even if you correctly answered most of the questions in the test, your result may still be lower than the average in the area you are applying for. How is this possible? Let’s look at the following example: you correctly answered 26 of 30 scenarios given in your situational judgment test. You interpret this to be a ‘good result’. However, other people applying for similar roles also have a good understanding of effective responses to each work scenario and, on average, correctly answer 27 of 30 questions. This means that your ‘good result’ is actually a ‘bad result’ because it’s lower than the average result of people who work in a similar role to the one you applied for.