Determining the Relationship between Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Scores and Long-Term Military Performance: A Correlational Study

摘要

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) was first introduced in 1968 and has been the primary tool for the military enlistment qualification and career placement of young men and women joining the armed forces. The ASVAB is a multiple-aptitude battery the Department of Defense and developers claim has the ability to predict future academic and occupational success in the military. The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental correlational study was to validate using the ASVAB as a predictor of future performance potential in the armed services by determining what relationship, if any, exists between pre-service ASVAB scores and actual realized long-term career performance documented in Air Force Enlisted Performance Reports (EPR). For this nonexperimental quantitative research study, a nonparametric correlational analysis, Spearman's rho (p), was employed using two variables, EPRs and ASVAB scores, to examine how ASVAB scores related to actual realized long-term military performance as captured in official evaluations. This research examined Air Force enlistees' pre-service ASVAB scores and career performance over the last 10 years. There were no physical participants in this study, only active-duty Air Force personnel records were gathered and analyzed. Air Force enlisted personnel records were pulled from 10 randomly selected career fields and sanitized by an Air Force Personnel Specialist to remove all personally identifiable information before being provided to the researcher. The sample included all personnel in the selected career fields assigned to the United States Air Forces Europe theater of operations. The goal for this research was to obtain 100 records from 10 different Air Force career fields. A total of 1,016 personnel files were gathered resulting in 13,588 records (9,524 EPRs and 4,064 ASVAB composite scores). If ASVAB scores are predictors of future military service abilities and performance as claimed by the developers of the ASVAB, then lower ASVAB scores in a given range for specific career fields should correlate with lower career EPR score averages. Analysis of the employed correlational research design revealed minimal negative and positive correlation value ranges (-.190 ≤ p ≤ .177) appeared between ASVAB composite scores and EPR averages analyzed by all records collected, within individual career fields, and by each ASVAB composite score. After analysis of available data in SPSS, there was no significant correlation found between pre-service ASVAB scores and documented long-term career performance as captured in EPRs. These results highlighted key areas for future research including, but not limited to, expanding this study to all Air Force personnel records and other branches of the armed services. The results also suggest ASVAB scoring results may not be a viable predictor of future military performance and other instruments, mechanisms, and assessment processes should be investigated to provide military recruiters a better picture of individual career performance potential.