What is the SJT?

Abstract

SJTs are commonly used by organizations for personnel selection. They aim to provide realistic, but hypothetical, scenarios and possible answers which are either selected or ranked by the candidate. One such test will contribute half, or significantly more than half, the score used by applicants to the UK Foundation Programme. The test will involve a single paper over two hours and twenty minutes in which candidates will answer 70 questions. This equates to approximately two minutes per question. Your response to 60 questions will be included in your final score, while ten questions embedded throughout the test will be pilot questions which are designed to be validated but not counted in your final score. You will not be able to differentiate pilot from genuine test questions and should answer every question as if it ‘counts’. In one SJT pilot, 96% of candidates finished the test within two hours, which provides some indication about the time pressure. It is important to answer all questions and not simply ‘guess’ those left at the end. Although the SJT is not negatively marked, random guesses are not allocated points. The scoring software will identify guesses by looking for unusual or sporadic answer patterns. The SJT will be held locally by individual medical schools under invigilated conditions. Therefore, your medical school should be in touch about specific local arrangements. Each SJT paper will include a selection of questions, each mapped to a specific professional attribute. Questions should be evenly distributed between attributes and between scenario type, i.e. ‘patient’, ‘colleague’, or ‘personal’. The SJT will include two types of question: ● multiple choice questions (approximately one- third) ● ranking questions (approximately two- thirds). These begin with a scenario and provide eight possible answers. Three of these are correct and should be selected. The remaining five are incorrect. The example in Box 2.1 provides an illustrative medical school scenario. For questions based around Foundation Programme scenarios, over 100 examples are provided for practice from onwards.