Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB): Predicting Military Criteriafrom General and Specific Abilities

摘要

This report describes the effectiveness of observed measures of general andspecific for the prediction of training success. Scores on the Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) were used to estimate the general ad specific components of abilities for recruits in 125 military occupations across the four U.S. Armed Services. The results of this study replicated and extended the results of earlier investigations using Principal Components analysis of observed ASVAB scores. These studies indicated that psychometric general ability 'g' is usually the best predictor of training success as measured by final technical school grade and Skill Qualification Test scores for the sample of military occupations used in this study. However, measures for specific ability resulted in significant increments to validity for 118 of the 125 military occupations examined. For this sample of military jobs, some situational specificity was found; thus, continued use of measures of specific abilities appears warranted. Keywords: Intelligence tests, Prediction, Job training recruits, Mental ability, Aptitude tests, Personnel selection. (EMK)