Modeling Army Applicants' Job Choices: The Enlisted Personnel Allocation System (EPAS) Simulation Job Choice Model (JCM)

摘要

To ensure that the EPAS Field Test Simulation provides a realistic and unbiased evaluation of the optimization potential of EPAS, a model simulating Army applicants' job choice decisions is needed. This report summarizes development and evaluation of an empirically-grounded Job Choice Model (JCM), which relates applicants' aptitude scores, demographic characteristics, and job opportunity attributes (including monetary incentives) to their actual choices. As with real-world applicant decisions, it will be possible under the JCM for a given applicant to decide not to join the Army (not access). Similarly, if the applicant elects to join the Army (access), the JCM can simulate the applicant's choice of one of the many MOS reception- station date (job) opportunities from their job list. By sequentially modeling actual applicants' choice behavior, the JCM provides a realistic approximation of applicants' decision-making processes for simulation purposes. Evaluation of the JCM demonstrates that the model effectively simulates applicants' job choice decisions.