Criterion Aspects of Army Research on the Prediction of Officer Performance

Abstract : The overall mission of the OFFICER PREDICTION Task of the U. S. Army Personnel Research Office is to develop improved techniques and prerequisites for selecting officers who have aptitudes and other characteristics to meet the demands for successful performance in combat, administrative, and technical assignments. The research program consists in essence of the development of a battery of tests--the Differential Officer Battery--and the determination of the effectiveness of these tests in differentially predicting officer performance in combat-type, administrative, and technical activities. Beginning in 1961, the tests were administered to approximately 4000 officers entering on active duty. After a year or more of service, 900 of these officers were evaluated in a series of situational performance tests--the Differential Officer Performance Battery--to obtain measures against which to gauge the effectiveness of the experimental predictors. The situational exercises were staged at the Officer Evaluation Center established for the purpose at Fort McClellan, Alabama. The present Research Study describing the testing operations at the Officer Evaluation Center reproduces a paper delivered as part of a symposium conducted by the Division of Military Psychology at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association held in September 1965 at Chicago, Illinois. (Author)