Different Culture, Same Situation? Translating and Applying a Situational Judgment Test From Germany in Cuba

Abstract

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are popular instruments in selection and assessment. However, the application of SJTs to non-Western cultural contexts remains scarce. In this study, we investigated whether an SJT on personal initiative, developed in Germany and translated into Cuban Spanish, had similar psychometric properties in Cuba. Second, there is an ongoing debate about the extent to which the situation description plays an important role for SJTs. We supposed that the impact of situation descriptions might depend on test takers’ familiarity with the culture in which the SJT was developed. Hence, we tested whether the omission of situation descriptions had larger effects in a Cuban than in a German sample. We applied a 2 (with vs. without situation description in the item stem) × 2 (cultural background: Cuba vs. Germany) between-subjects design (NCuba = 192, NGermany = 213). The results revealed similar psychometric properties between Cuban and German test takers concerning measurement invariance, construct-related validity, and reliability. In addition, we examined whether samples differ regarding applicant perceptions: Notably, for four of six applicant perception scales, the Cuban sample reported a more positive view of the SJT. Furthermore, we found that the effect of situation availability on SJT performance did not substantially depend on the test takers’ cultural background. Implications for cross-cultural generalizability are discussed.