AB131. SOH26AB_0259. The use of situational judgement testing in the selection of postgraduate trainees: a systematic review
Systematic Reviews Session

AB131. SOH26AB_0259. The use of situational judgement testing in the selection of postgraduate trainees: a systematic review

Fiachra McHugh, Emily O’Dowd, Dara O’Keeffe, Marie Morris, Dara Kavanagh

Department of Surgical Affairs, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, Dublin, Ireland

Background: Over the past 5 years in Ireland, the number of applicants to the postgraduate core surgical training (CST) scheme has risen substantially, while places remain limited. Given this, it has become unfeasible to interview all surgical applicants. As the evidence for situational judgement testing (SJT) across specialties grows, the evidence to support its inclusion in surgical selection remains somewhat limited. This systematic review will help to inform our decision-making moving forward as to the implementation of SJTs in the CST selection process.

Methods: We prospectively registered this systematic review with PROSPERO (CRD42025107699). The Cochrane Library, Embase, Medline, Psycinfo, PubMed, and Scopus databases were searched up to October 2025. Comparative studies only were included.

Results: Our search identified 9,090 citations; from this, we identified 20 appropriate for inclusion in a narrative synthesis. This included 26,672 participants across all trials. 12 (60%) of these papers were in the selection of general practice trainees, with 1 (4 %) looking at the selection of postgraduate surgical trainees. Of the included studies, 11 were prospective (55%), while 9 (45%) were retrospective, and none were randomised. The majority (14/20) of SJTs designed were written format with either ranking or multiple-choice format. There was heterogeneity in terms of methods against which SJTs were compared, with simulation/objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) type stations being the most common (10/20). Fifteen/20 (75%) of trials showed statistically significant levels of correlation between SJTs and predicting performance in standard measures.

Conclusions: SJTs demonstrate predictive validity when compared against standard selection methods in predicting performance on postgraduate training schemes. However, there is limited evidence in a surgical population.

Keywords: Situational judgement testing (SJT); postgraduate training; selection; core surgical training (CST); non-technical skills

Acknowledgments

None.

Footnote

Funding: None.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

doi: 10.21037/map-26-ab131
Cite this abstract as: McHugh F, O’Dowd E, O’Keeffe D, Morris M, Kavanagh D. AB131. SOH26AB_0259. The use of situational judgement testing in the selection of postgraduate trainees: a systematic review. Mesentery Peritoneum 2026;10:AB131.

Article Options

Download Citation

Share