THE EFFECTS OF CORRECTING EARLY FITNESS REPORTS FOR SITUATIONAL FACTORS

Abstract

Abstract : The major purpose of the investigation was to determine the need for making statistical corrections to the fitness reports of junior officers to adjust for possible inequalities due to extraneous situational factors. The situational influences for which corrections were made were (a) type of duty stations at which reports were made, (b) number of reports (up to 5) the officer had received, (c) rater familiarity with the junior officer, as measured by the number of successive reports completed by the same rater. The analysis was conducted on the reports received during the first 18 months of active duty of 1,338 members of the NROTC graduating Class of 1959. The sample was fractionated into groups homogeneous with regard to the variables being studied. Standard scores were computed for each subgroup, and these were compared with raw, unstandardized average fitness scores for the total group. Although conducted in the process of developing a means of using early fitness reports as a research criterion, the findings of the study were encouraging in that they suggest the fitness report to be relatively uninfluenced by extraneous factors as used operationally.