Promoting Values-Based Recruitment in community dementia support through Situational Judgement Tests
Award Number
NIHR204003Programme
Research for Patient BenefitStatus / Stage
CompletedDates
1 January 2023 -1 August 2025
Duration (calculated)
02 years 07 monthsFunder(s)
NIHRFunding Amount
£349,904.00Funder/Grant study page
NIHRContracted Centre
University of YorkContracted Centre Webpage
Principal Investigator
Dr Mark WilberforcePI Contact
mark.wilberforce@york.ac.ukPI ORCID
0000-0001-6977-4483WHO Catergories
Methodologies and approaches for risk reduction researchModels across the continuum of care
Tools and methodologies for interventions
Disease Type
Dementia (Unspecified)CPEC Review Info
| Reference ID | 207 |
|---|---|
| Researcher | Reside Team |
| Published | 12/06/2023 |
Data
| Award Number | NIHR204003 |
|---|---|
| Status / Stage | Completed |
| Start Date | 20230101 |
| End Date | 20250801 |
| Duration (calculated) | 02 years 07 months |
| Funder/Grant study page | NIHR |
| Contracted Centre | University of York |
| Contracted Centre Webpage | |
| Funding Amount | £349,904.00 |
Abstract
People living with dementia (PLWD), and receiving social care at home, count upon the invaluable support delivered by a care workforce that is being stretched beyond its limits. Employers face 30-40% annual turnover, and there are over 110,000 vacancies, and 500,000+ new starters in social care each year. Meeting current and future needs means encouraging more applications from non-traditional segments of the labour market. How can we be sure that candidates have the right qualities for dementia care? Values , defined as enduring principles that steer people towards particular behaviours, are central to the wishes of PLWD. Yet values are difficult to assess using interviews: they cannot be directly observed, and managers can inadvertently read values in other characteristics, introducing bias. Situational judgement tests (SJTs) can supplement recruitment processes, and are widely used in other occupations. SJTs are brief assessment tools describing job-related incidents in which pre-specified values are being stretched. Candidates are asked to evaluate the appropriateness of different possible behavioural responses to the incident, which are then scored against expert-established ideals . They are not commonly used in social care, and those that exist are either proprietary and/or lack an evidence-base. A previous feasibility study demonstrated the potential for research-based SJTs in social care. Psychometric analyses showed that these feasibility SJT scores were unidimensional, had strong test-retest reliability, and validity was supported by expected correlations with key personality traits. New research is needed to (i) evaluate SJTs against a wider range of values, prioritised by PLWD; (ii) examine implementation to identify facilitators and barriers to success, and (iii) assess whether SJT scores predict job performance. The proposed research is supported by experts-by-experience and a range of social care stakeholders. The study comprises five stages. What values? A panel of experts-by-experience will establish the values prioritised by PLWD. Design of SJTs. Interviews with care workers will identify critical incidents , based on real-life experiences in which values were stretched. SJTs will then be drafted, with a scoring system set by experts-by-experience. Implementation: 15 homecare providers, chosen to reflect variation in provider characteristics and the socio-demographics (including poverty and ethnicity) of the locality served, will implement SJTs as part of their recruitment practices. Evaluation: interviews with provider managers and applicants for care jobs will investigate how SJTs are used and experienced, and how they influence decisions. An assessment of the psychometric properties of SJTs will include structure and dimensionality, fit to Rasch assumptions, test-retest reliability, and predictive validity against supervisor job performance ratings. Analysis will also evaluate differences in scores by the ethnicity and education background of test-takers. Impact: The SJTs will be hosted online through Skills for Care. We will promote the use of SJTs through a series of workshops, working alongside the Institute for Health and Social Care Management, networks of homecare providers, and local authorities. An online system of SJTs, together with an implementation guide, will be freely available to all care providers to support values-based recruitment.
Plain English Summary
There are growing numbers of people living with dementia who also have social care needs. Many live at home, supported to live independently by care workers. However, there are not enough care workers to meet current needs. Also, the crisis in recruiting and retaining care workers means that people with dementia are not receiving continuity in care. They often find that care workers they get to know then leave, and they have to start again. To try and solve this problem, social care providers are trying to attract people to work in care, who might not previously have considered doing so. How can we be sure that these new care workers have the values and attitudes that make them suitable for care work with people living with dementia? To help recruit people with the right values, some public services use “situational judgement tests” (or SJTs). They work by presenting candidates with a written or animated scenario, based on real-life work, in which values are being challenged or stretched. Then, the candidate rates how good (or bad) different actions would be in response. SJTs are used to help recruit police officers, teachers, nurses, and many others. Research says that SJTs can help with recruiting and retaining people with the right values for the job. However, they are not used much in social care. This new research proposes to design and test SJTs in social care. There are 5 stages. What values? Experts-by-experience will lead a process to decide what values are most important for these SJTs to test. The panel will include people from different cultural backgrounds, and will be supported by a specialist dementia charity. Design. We will interview care workers and people living with dementia, to ask for examples where they feel that the chosen values have been stretched in real-life dementia care. We will turn these, anonymously, into SJTs. The scoring system for SJTs will be decided by experts-by-experience. Implementation. We will invite homecare organisations to use the SJTs in employing care workers. Evaluation. We will look at how homecare organisations used the SJTs. What did they find useful? How was information used to choose candidates? What factors helped and hindered how the SJTs were used? Do good workers tend to do well on the SJTs? Action. Together with service users, we will deliver workshops to help share the messages. The final SJTs will be hosted (free of charge) on a website together with guidance on their use. We will work with a body called ‘Skills for Care’ to promote their use with homecare organisations. We will also write articles about the research, and we will talk about our messages at conferences.