Technical b r Report - International Military Testing Association

still primitive, so measurements used are those available, which -‘.. :!
ii-.
are usually designed for another purpose. This is true of
c
Specialty
Knowledge Tests (SKT’s).
f
SKT’s are used operationally by the Air Force as promotion
criteria. They are specialty-specific paper and pencil tc6ts updated
frequently by Air Force supervisors with current experience ir, the
specialty. An SKT score for an individual may be said to indicate
that individual’s potential for performance or productivity within
the given specialty. SKT’s are taken for promotion purposes, thus
all with a score for a particular sKT..had a common motive for
excelling on the test.
If either OJT or TTS were ‘superior’ to the other, one would
expect this to be manifested in the graduates’ performance. Studies
discussed above found no evidence to support the hypothesis that
OJT and TTS differ in the quality of their braduates. Because SKT’s
are specialty-specific, used by the Air Force for promotion, and are
taken by both OJT and TTS graduates with common motives for
excelling, SKT’s may be useful for examining this hypothesis.
Thus, SKT scores were used to compare the specialty !cnowlcdge
of OJT and TTS graduates who received initial upgrade training in the
same specialties for which O.JT cost data has been or is being collected.
The research hypothesis tested was that OJT and TTS graduates are
of equal quality. Operational testing of this hypothesis was conducted by
comparing the individual SKT scores of OJT graduates with those of
TTS graduates, holding constant other factors thought to be related
tc SKT scores. The rationale i%r including or excluding ‘related’
variables will not be developed here. Analysis ‘of covariance was
used to test the operational hypothesis and also to test whether the
‘related’ variables explained some of the variance of the SKT scores.
Table 7 lists the variables included for each test specialty. Separate
analyses were conducted for the specialties lis’ed in Table 8.
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If
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