Aptitude and Course Achievement in a Short Missile Technician Course

Abstract

THIS STUDY seeks to determine limited apti tude characteristics of students in a short missile technician's course, and the general relationship of these aptitude characteristics to various parts of the course and the final course average. The Personnel Research Branch (PRB) of the Adju tant General's Office, Department of the Army, has put forth much effort to stabilize and stand ardize measures of aptitude characteristics. HumRRO has been concerned with training prob lems and the assessment and improvement of training circumstances. The purpose of the pres ent study is to assess academic achievement of missile t e c h n i c i ans in terms of their aptitude characteristics, and suggest concrete referents for further training research in this area. The ten aptitude tests in the present Army Classification Battery (ACB), which are adminis tered to most enlisted personnel when they enter service, became operational in 1949 (10). Since that time, PRB has continually reviewed and an alyzed these measures (e. g., 2, 3,10, 11) to en sure their stability and enhance their usefulness as predictive measures of success in various army occupational specialities. Though research is presently programmed for the ACB in the mis sile field, such information is not now available. One major interest in HumRRO's training re search has resided in comparing course achieve ment with later proficiency in the field. An ex emplary study (9) determined t h e major opera tional functions for missile maintenance person nel, built proficiency and written tests to meas ure ability regarding these functions, and com pared recent school graduates with experienced field personnel on the written and proficiency tests as well as several other variables. The aptitudes of the two major groups (i. e., the recent gradu ates and the field-experienced personnel) were not compared with regard to most of their ACB scores. Aptitude measures in this study were comprised of an electronic score (i.e., acorn pound of two ACB scores) and the Electronic Placement Test*; aptitude, as measured by these variables, correlated to some extent with written test scores but demonstrated very little relation ship with the proficiency test scores. Now, it is not reasonable that aptitude should be unrelated to proficiency (i. e., ability); therefore, a more ex tensive study of aptitude characteristics of such groups might well prove rewarding from both the situational and measurement standpoint. Another HumRRO study (1) investigated the re lationship of academic achievement in various parts of a course. But again, noextensive use was made of aptitude as related to the various parts of the course.