Preliminary Operational Findings From The Army's Tier Two Attrition Screen (TTAS) Measure

Abstract : This paper reports preliminary operational findings on a new non-high school diploma graduate (NHSDG) quality indicator called the Tier Two Attrition Screen (TTAS). TTAS combines several indicators of adaptability from the motivational (Assessment of Individual Motivation (AIM)), cognitive (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)), and physical fitness (Body Mass Index) domains to measure the attrition propensity of NHSDG applicants. The TTAS measure is being used as part of an Army NHSDG recruiting market expansion pilot program that was fully implemented in April 2005. Under this ongoing program, DoD is allowing the Army to access thousands of additional TTAS-qualified NHSDG recruits because these recruits are projected to have attrition rates that are lower and more similar to those of high school diploma graduates (HSDG). Our preliminary results for General Educational Development (GED) credential holders indicate that the operational TTAS measure predicts both 6- and 9-month attrition. Those who passed the current TTAS standard (set at the 50th percentile) had a 6-month attrition rate (6.2%) that was nearly as low as the attrition rate for HSDG (i.e., 5.6%); and considerably lower than the attrition rate of those NHSDG who failed the TTAS standard (i.e., 10.3%). Consistent with previous projections, we also found that those applicants scoring in the top 30% of the TTAS score distribution had 6- and 9-month attrition rates that were nearly identical to those of HSDG. The use of the TTAS measure as an NHSDG quality indicator is projected to save the Army $100 million in recruiting resources over the course of this market-expansion pilot program. Future directions in ARI's TTAS evaluation research are discussed.