The Performance of Military Personnel on USAFI Subject Examinations

Abstract

THIS REPORT presents comparative test findings for members of the armed forces and civilian students both of whom had taken the same examination. The examinations reported upon here were the United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) Subject Examinations. These tests are standardized, achieve ment examinations in high school or college courses suchas: American History; Civics; Algebra; Economics; etc. They were constructed during 1942 and 1943 primarily for accreditation purposes and were designed so as to be useful in assessing the subject matter competency of individuals who had completed course work under a variety of educational settings. Each USAFI Subject Exami nation requires approximately two hours to complete. There are two parallel forms of each subject examination. One test form is available to civilian edu cational institutions, while a second form is reserved for use by the armed forces. Members of the armed forces are tested by qualified testing personnel in the United States and throughout the world. The answer sheets are scored by USAFI's and are then sent to USAFI, Madison, for official recording purposes. Samples of the answer sheets are saved and periodic check studies are made as to the effectiveness of the examinations. Tables I and H summarize the performance (Mean Score, Standard Deviation, and Percent Failing the test) of military and civilian examinees on the USAFI Subject Examinations. As can be seen, the performance data are surprisingly in close agreement for many of the 16 Subject Examinations. Obviously the relatively small size of the military examinee group may account for the favorable empirical differences obtained thus far between civilian and military examinees; for example: High School and College Modern European H i story, High School Civics. Where the military test results diverge noticeably and un favorably as compared to the civilian test results; for example: High School American History; CoUege Algebra; College Electricity and Magnetism; there is reason to believe that these examinations are being taken by military person nel who are possibly reaching beyond their actual educational preparation or attainments as of that date. To cite an example of the above, it is known that the Army requires applicants for the Army's Special Weapons Course at Fort Leavenworth to take th? College Algebra Test. In many instances, it is believed that applicants for the above training have not had the necessary preparation to pass the Subject Examination, or have not had sufficient time to review for it. The situation in regards to the High School American History Examination is probably somewhat similar in that military personnel, seeking to obtain a High School Equivalency Diploma via the High School GED Tests and the passing of the Subject Examination in American History, may be prematurely over-reaching