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PREDICTION OF OFFICER PERFORMANCE
Abstract
The Officer Prediction Task, established within the U. S. Army Personnel Research Office (USAPRO), has a requirement to provide the Army with improved techniques and prerequisites for selecting officers who have aptitudes and other characteristics to meet demands for successful performance in different types of officer command responsibility. The study was centered on the differential prediction of officer performance in the technical, administrative, and combat areas of assignment. Validation of the Differential Officer Battery (DOB), a battery of experimental predictors administered in 1961-1962, is in progress. Situational criterion measures, five for each of the three fields, were developed and integrated into a regularly scheduled testing operation administered since July 1963 in a simulated MAAG setting at the Officer Evaluation Center (OEC), Fort McClellan. Initial statistical processing has begun.
... Mael and his colleagues have noted that behaviors and experiences predicting cadet leadership grades during the early academic semesters are different from those predicting leadership grades during the early Summer details, suggesting the presence of two leadership performance dimensions (Mael & Hirsch, 1993;Mael & Schwartz, 1991;Mael & White, 1994). Similar findings have been obtained in earlier research with junior officers, where differences between "technical or administrative" leadership and "combat" leadership were examined (Willemin, 1964;Helme, Willemin, & Grafton, 1971;Mays-Terry & Dyer, 1986). For these reasons, it was thought best to examine leadership grades associated with a cadet's eight academic semesters separately from their grades associated with their four Summer detail periods. ...
As part of a leadership research program at the U.S. Military Academy involving cadets in the Class of 1998, this report examined the viability of using archival data on prior cadets to estimate a variety of personality constructs among current cadets. Two sets of archival personality data on prior cadet classes were obtained. The first involved a short form administration of the ABLE inventory to cadets in the Class of 1994. The second involved the administration of the NEO Personality Inventory to the Class of 1996. Scores on the 12 scales contained in these inventories were used as archival criteria. Archival predictors were then sought from other and questionnaire items administered to cadets at the same point in time as the original inventories. For each scale, a different 20-item pool of predictors was developed from the archival items having the strongest zero order correlations with that scale. A series of multiple regression analyses was then used to predict scores on each scale. An average R2 of .39 per scale was obtained after cross validation. Both the original scales and their analogs tended to manifest similar relationships with two external criteria examined, leadership performance and attrition.
... An early predecessor was the Differential Officer Leadership (DOL) Experimental Test Battery, which was administered experimentally to a male officer sample in 1958-1959. Based on the results of analyses on this sample, the DOL was refined to become the Differential Officer Battery (DOB) (Willemin, 1964). Pactor analyses were conducted on individual tests or groupings of tests comprising the DOB (Helme, Willemin, a Day, 1971 ), followed by validational analyses based on an all-male sample in a simulated combat situation on the resulting scales (Helme, Willemin, & Day, 1974). ...
The present study compared male and female performance on the Cadet Evaluation Battery (CEB), a measure of Army officer potential, and compared male scores achieved in two testing periods 4 years apart. The CEB was administered to 637 male cadets in the 2d year (Military Science II) of the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) in 1971 and to 1,035 female and 926 male applicants in the 3d year of ROTC (MS III) in 1975. Cognitive scale scores from the 1971 sample were superior to the cognitive scores for both the male and female 1975 samples, while the noncognitive scores for the 1975 male group exceeded those for the 1971 group on three of four scales. These results were discussed in terms of changes in the nature of the ROTC population following the cessation of the draft. Comparisons between male and female scores from the 1975 samples indicated that females tended to perform as competently as males on the cognitive scales but revealed that male performance was superior on all four noncognitive scales. Discussion of the sex differences observed focused on the use of all-male samples in the development of the CEB.
This study investigates the feasibility of designing, constructing, and operating a conceptual model of a tactical operations center simulator. The model is intended to simulate performance tasks identified for Army Security Agency company level officers during combat operations. The model has been operational at the United States Army Security Agency Training Center and School, Fort Devens, Massachusetts, since 1970 and continues to serve as an alternative to other more costly methods of combat simulation. The model's subsystems include an electro-optic simulation of tactical level communications and electronic warfare techniques. High resolution aerial photography is simulated by closed circuit television suspended above a terrain board. Stress is induced by information overload, accelerated and compounded decision making, peer group pressure, and battle drills. An artificial environment is effected by performance testing and role playing in conjunction with an HO scale (1/4": l') model war game exercise. The model may be used with computer assisted performance testing. The study describes the use of the model as an instructional device, performance testing device, and as a substitute for a brigade level command post exercise. Application of the model to civilian education and other training agencies is discussed. Technical data reporting on the method employed to simulate radio wave propagation by visible light waves are provided in detail.
The heart of human factors performance research is the development of an appropriate criterion or effectiveness measure. Typical criteria employed in research from 1941 to 1963 by the U.S. Army Personnel Research Office have included grades, ratings, and situational performance measures, each selected for use according to critical methodological, operational, and administrative considerations. Emphasis is placed upon predicting individual effectiveness.
Today's military manager desires an evaluation of a system or subsystem as a totality and is likely to give more wholehearted acceptance to that research product expressed in quantitative units reflecting his goals and mission. Examples are given of the roles human factors scientists play today in helping develop the systems output criterion, similar to human factors performance criteria in some respects but which requires more attention to the need for simulation and to decisions with respect to laboratory vs. field experimentation. A framework of human factors oriented systems research is presented.
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