2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

instructions, in order to make observations on the learning progression an applicant shows.
Digit recall consisted of two parts. The academic part of the MPSB was conceived to measure
skills in the domain of Maths, Physics, sciences and languages (mother tongue and English as
a second language). Furthermore, candidates had to pass physical tests (swimming, shuttle
run, pull ups, sit ups, jumping and throwing). The psychological interview was conducted by
a psychologist in order to get an impression of the personality characteristics of the
candidates. Finally, the professional interview was done by a pilot in order to measure the
candidate’s job knowledge and motivation.
Dependent variable or criterion
The criterion for the regressions was the evaluation score at the end of the twelve
flights during the initial training stage, called the General Flight Double (GFD12). During
these flights the instructor flies with the trainee and can correct for trainee’s mistakes. A flight
without mistakes is rewarded with a blue card (= excellent flight) or a green card (=
satisfactory flight). For a weak flight the trainee gets a yellow card and for an unsatisfactory
flight a red card is given.
The criterion was operationalised in a continuous way (the summed score of the
number of green and blue cards, with a minimum of zero and a maximum of twelve) and in a
dichotomous way (passed or failed the training).
Procedures
A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was conducted on the PM and PS data sets
using the applicant’s population.
Linear and logistic regressions were performed on the academic, physical, interview
and psychotechnical data subsets. Each of the described analyses was performed on the pilot
trainee population. There were violations of the normality assumptions for interview data and
for some distributions of psychotechnical test scores. A multicollinearity problem arose in the
analysis of the PM-test scores. There proved to be redundancy (r = -.97) between RM_DISCR
(number of omitted responses in the discrimination test) and G1_DISCR number of good
responses on the first part of the discrimination test). The variable RM_DISCR was removed
from further analyses.
RESULTS
Principal Components Analysis
In Table 1 the outcome of a PCA for PM and PS results on the applicant’s population
is shown. A good and interpretable solution was found with a Quartimax normalized rotation.
Marked loadings are > .700000. Following five components could be distinguished: memorylearning
method (Component 1), discrimination (Component 2), co-ordination (Component
3), spatial-mathematical reasoning (Component 4) and reaction (Component 5). In the two
last rows the explained variance and the total proportion of explained variance are given.
Although variables G1_DISCR and G2_DISCR, on the one hand, and variables
TR_DISCR and RI_DISCR, on the other hand, belong to the same component they are
negatively correlated. The reason for this is probably that they measure the same construct in
a different way: the former two measure good responses (the more the better), the latter two
are a time measure (the less, the better).
Table 1. Principal Components Analysis on PM and PS test results in the applicant’s
population of auxiliary pilots
781
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003