Longitudinal Investigation of the Army Officer Career Commitment Process

摘要

The first-year activities of a six-year longitudinal investigation of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) route to becoming an Army officer are reported. The investigation will refine a model of ROTC/Army career commitment developed earlier. The first year of the longitudinal project was devoted to planning, sampling, and instrument development activities. The second through sixth years will be devoted to data collection from a national sample of ROTC students as they progress through college and being Army service. Comparison data will be collected yearly from new ROTC students and from college students not enrolled in ROTC. During the first year a sample of 20 colleges was drawn and arrangements were made for their participation in the study; the career commitment model being examined by the investigation was expanded to enrich the notion of commitment and to include the variable of performance; appropriate survey instruments were developed and pretested; and a data analysis plan was developed. These activities were supported by reviews of the literature on organizational commitment and performance; interviews with ROTC instructors, ROTC students, and non-ROTC students at six colleges; and a survey of 931 college students (461 in ROTC) at 13 colleges across the country.