Human Aptitude Ability Assessment Techniques for System Designers

Abstract : Modern weapon systems are increasing in sophistication and man-machine interface complexity, while the manpower pool to operate and maintain these systems is decreasing in terms of both numbers of individuals and the aptitudes, abilities and skills those individual bring into the Army. This situation leads to the necessity of considering human resources as a parameter of weapon system design, but such an effort is severely handicapped by a lack of efficient and reliable techniques that can be used by designers to estimate the human resource implications of their designs. The Army Research Institute (ARI) is currently pursuing a research program to develop a human aptitude/ability assessment technique for use during weapon system design. The basic approach is a taxonomy similar to that developed by Fleishman but computerized for greater efficiency and with heavier emphasis on cognitive factors. Research concerns within this project include: Whether a branching or an exhaustive assessment technique is more effective, what is the appropriate level of analyses jobs or tasks, should the method of qualitative analysis be discrete or continuous, and what is the effect of having different types of users of the assessment procedures.