Methods for Predicting Job-Ability Requirements: III. Ability Requirements as a Function of Changes in the Characteristics of a Concept Identification Task.

摘要

The report describes the third study in a program of research dealing with the relationships between the characteristics of human tasks and the abilities required for task performance. The goal of the program is to generate principles which can be used to identify ability requirements from knowledge of the characteristics of a task and of variations in the conditions of task performance. Such knowledge has important implications for both selection and training of personnel. The present study investigated the relationship between variations in a prototypic problem-solving task, concept identification, and consequent changes in the abilities related to problem-solving performance. Characteristics of the problem-solving task were manipulated by varying the formal difficulty and perceptual complexity of the problems. Subjects performed the criterion task under the different experimental conditions, and then received a battery of reference tests designed to measure abilities which were hypothesized to relate to problem-solving performance. To determine the relationship between task characteristics and ability requirements, the test battery was factor analyzed to identify a reference ability structure. The loadings of the various criterion task conditions on that structure were then estimated.