Differential Prediction of FAA Academy Performance on the Basis of Gender andWritten Air Traffic Control Specialist Aptitude Test Scores

摘要

The technical fairness of the written air traffic control specialist (ATCS)aptitude test battery was investigated within the framework of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (29 CFR 1607). First, the adverse impact of using a composite score on the test battery was evaluated on an archival sample of 170,578 job applicants. Analysis based on correlations corrected for explicit and implicit restriction in range found significant differences in slopes and intercepts by gender, suggesting that separate regression equations were appropriate to predict Academy performance for the genders. The practical significance of the statistically small effect sizes is considered within the framework of current equal employment opportunity legislation and case law in the discussion of these results. The alternative explanation that these results reflect gender differences in job-related abilities, rather than test bias, is considered.