Situational Judgement Test: Foundations

What Does the SJT Test?

The Situational Judgement Test (SJT) assesses your capacity to understand real-world scenarios and identify appropriate professional behaviours. It evaluates whether you demonstrate the attitudes and values expected of healthcare professionals — empathy, integrity, teamwork, patient safety, and ethical reasoning.

The Format

• 69 questions in 26 minutes (approximately 23 seconds per question)
• 20–25 scenarios, each followed by 2–5 response options
• Two question formats: Appropriateness rating and Importance ranking
• Scored on a banding system (Band 1 to Band 4) rather than a numerical scale

Appropriateness Rating Questions

You are given a scenario and several possible responses. For each response, you independently rate it as:

• A very appropriate thing to do: An ideal response that directly addresses the situation professionally
• Appropriate, but not ideal: Not the perfect response, but a reasonable and defensible action
• Inappropriate, but not awful: Not a good response, but not severely harmful or unethical
• A very inappropriate thing to do: A response that would cause harm, break ethical principles, or demonstrate poor judgement

Importance Ranking Questions

You are given a scenario and several considerations. You must rank them from most important to least important. These questions test your ability to prioritise competing demands.

The Scoring System

SJT scoring is based on how closely your ratings match the expert panel’s ratings:

• Exact match with the expert answer = maximum marks for that response
• One band away from the expert answer = partial marks
• Two or more bands away = no marks

This means that even if you’re unsure, choosing a rating that is close to correct is far better than being wildly wrong. If torn between two adjacent ratings, you still have a good chance of scoring.

SJT Band Descriptors

• Band 1: You demonstrated many attributes of a good healthcare professional — strong performance
• Band 2: You demonstrated some attributes — average performance
• Band 3: You demonstrated fewer attributes — below average
• Band 4: You demonstrated few attributes — may be a red flag for some universities