2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

more counterproductive behaviors, and seek alternative employment more often than their
satisfied counterparts (Lightfoot, Alley, Schultz, Heggestad, Watson, Crowson, & Fedak, in
press; Lightfoot, McBride, Heggestad, Alley, Harman, & Rounds, in press).
The JOIN vocational interest system will provide a critical component to the RIDE
classification process. Current interest inputs to RIDE represent informal discussions with the
classifier, which vary quantitatively and qualitatively by applicant. The JOIN system educates
individuals about the variety of job related opportunities in the Navy, and creates a unique
interest profile for the individual. The Sailor-rating interest fit for all Navy Ratings is identified
by comparing the Applicant’s Rating Interest Profile to each of the Rating Interest Profiles
generated by JOIN. Once validated, JOIN provides a standardized and quantified measure of
applicant vocational interests, which will be provided as an input to RIDE. If successful,
RIDE/JOIN can be implemented for initial classification, and transitioned to training and fleet
commands for re-classification. Recent research efforts have focused on the development of the
comprehensive JOIN Rating Interest Profile model for all Navy ratings, based on a series of
analyses including iterative Subject Matter Expert (SME) interviews. Paralleling these efforts has
been the development of the JOIN experimental software, also developed in concert with SMEs
(see section below for details).
JOIN Model Development
Following an early effort by Alley, Crowson, and Fedak (in press), that was very much in
the vein of typical contemporary interest inventories, it was determined that JOIN’s format
should be more pragmatically based. The development of the current JOIN tool is documented
in Michael, Hindelang, Watson, Farmer, and Alderton (in press). The item development for Jobs
and Occupational Interests in the Navy (JOIN) was an iterative process. The first challenge was
to develop work activity and work environment items through an abbreviated job analytic
procedure. A basic model of work served as the framework for the examination of Navy jobs and
for the development of the inventory items. Conceptually, at the macro-level, the Navy consists
of various job families or groupings of jobs according to organizational function, platform and/or
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003
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