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Branched situational judgment tests (BSJTs) are an increasingly common employee selection method, yet there is no theory and very little empirical work explaining the designs and impacts of branching. To encourage additional research on BSJTs, and to provide practitioners with a common language to describe their current and future practices, we sought to develop a theory of BSTJs.

Given the absence of theory on branching, we utilized a ground theory qualitative research design, conducting interviews with 25 BSJT practitioner subject matter experts.

Our final theory consists of three components: (1) a taxonomy of BSJT branching features (contingency, parallelism, convergence, and looping) and options within those features (which vary), (2) a causal theoretical model describing impacts of branching in general on applicant reactions via proximal effects on face validity, and (3) a causal theoretical model describing impacts on applicant reactions among branching designs via proximal effects on consistency of administration and opportunity to perform.

Our work provides the first theoretical foundation on which future confirmatory research in the BSJT domain can be built. It also gives both researchers and practitioners a common language for describing branching features and their options. Finally, it reveals BSJTs as the results of a complex set of interrelated design features, discouraging the oversimplified contrasting of “branching” vs “not branching.”

Increasing enrollments in colleges of business have not been matched by women majoring in the field of information systems (IS). This paper aims to explore reasons why women choose not to major in information technology disciplines and to suggest potential solutions.

The authors used a behavioral model based on the theory of reasoned action and a survey of the students enrolled in six sections of a college‐wide MIS course to help them answer the fundamental question “Why don't more women major in information systems?” They also used partial least squares analysis to estimate the parameters of the model and the results of several open‐ended survey questions to validate their statistical findings, leading to a richer triangulation of study results.

The study found that a “genuine interest in IS” and the “influence of family” most account for a woman's decision to major in information systems. Equally important are those items that did not appear to attract females, including such matters as “job‐related factors” or the “influence of fellow students or friends”. These findings have important recruitment and retention implications as well as suggesting some avenues for further study.

The analyses suggest that there is much faculty and business recruiters can do to encourage more females to major in IT‐related disciplines. One is to encourage women to develop more interest in the field. Another is to create more study options for women with hard‐science talents who want to pursue technologically‐intensive careers. Finally, teachers, academic institutions, and employers might find it useful to address some of the misconceptions that women might have about IT‐related jobs – for example, that IT jobs are only for males or computer geeks – and stress the many positive dimensions of IT career paths.

Assessment gamification, which refers to the addition of game elements to existing assessments, is commonly implemented to improved applicant reactions to existing psychometric measures. This study aims to understand the effects of gamification on applicant reactions to and measurement quality of situational judgment tests.

In a 2 × 4 between-subjects experiment, this study randomly assigned 315 people to experience different versions of a gamified situational judgment test, crossing immersive game elements (text, audio, still pictures, video) with control game elements (high and low), measuring applicant reactions and assessing differences in convergent validity between conditions.

The use of immersive game elements improved perceptions of organizational technological sophistication, but no other reactions outcomes (test attitudes, procedural justice, organizational attractiveness). Convergent validity with cognitive ability was not affected by gamification.

This is the first study to experimentally examine applicant reactions and measurement quality to SJTs based upon the implementation of specific game elements. It demonstrates that small-scale efforts to gamify assessments are likely to lead to only small-scale gains. However, it also demonstrates that such modifications can be done without harming the measurement qualities of the test, making gamification a potentially useful marketing tool for assessment specialists. Thus, this study concludes that utility should be considered carefully and explicitly for any attempt to gamify assessment.