I__. - International Military Testing Association

CHAKAC'l'EKIZlNCi Kfi:jPON!~ELj TO fi’l’HE!;S UT-LLL% ING DOSP: EQUlVALENCY ME’L’1i01~0LOC,Y
Robert S. Kennedy, Essex Corporation: William P. Dunlap, Tulane University:
Janet J. Turnage, University of Central Florida:
Jennifer E. Fowlkes, Essex Corporation*, Orlando, FL
1NTRODUCTlON
One of the chief problems in quantifying the effects of stressors on
operational performance, such as heat and combat stress, is the lack of
reliability in the criterion tasks. To circumvent the problems which hinder
development of a quantitative definition of workforce performance decrement,
we offer two methodologies: surrogate measurements and dose equivalency
testing.
Surroqate Measurement
Insufficient attention to reliability can lead to attenuated validities,
reduction of statistical power, higher sample size requirements, increased
cost of experiments, and when hazard or discomfort is involved, human use
problems. These problems focused us on development of highly reliable measure
sets such as may be obtained with microcomputer-based mental acuity tests
(Kennedy, Baltzley, Lane, Wilkes, & Smith, 1989; Kennedy, Wilkes, Lane, &
Homick, 1985). We recognized these are separate from the operational
criteria, but highly similar to the criteria in skill requirements. We
reasoned that, if the measures correlate well with the criteria and behave
similarly under changing task conditions, perhaps they could be used as a
surrogate in place of the criteria. We called this approach “surrogate
measurement” ( Lane, Kennedy, & Jones, 1986) and listed requirements for
surrogate tests as those which are related to or predictive of real-world
performances but are not actual measures of the performance per se. In our
plan, surrogate measures are composed of tests or batteries that exhibit five
characteristics:
1. Stable so that the “what is being measured” is constant:
2. Correlated with the operational performance;
3. Sensitive to the same factors that would affect performance as the
performance variable would:
4. More reliable than field measures; and
5. Involving minimal training time.
An obvious candidate for a surrogate to measure military performance would
be the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). ASVAB scores are
used to determine eligibility for various military occupational specialties
based on construct validity and continuing programs of empirical studies. The
tests of the ASVAB also have considerable content and criterion-related
validity, including training performances at military formal schools as well
as operational performance studies. In at least one case (Wallace, 19821,
performances during war games with tank forces were correlated with subtest
scores from the ASVAB better than with any other variable in the study. But
the ASVAH is not meant to be administered repeatedly. If it could be shown
that the ASVAB was highly correlated with a repeated measurement test battery.
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*Dr. Fowlkes is now employed at Engineering and Economics Research, Orlando, FL
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