I__. - International Military Testing Association

ASSESSMENT OF APTITUDE REQUIREMENTS FOR
NEW OR MODIFIED SYSTEMS
Lawrence H. O’Brien
Dynamics Research Corporation
Wilmington, Ma.
INTRODUCTION
Recent Department of Defense initiatives on manpower. personnel, and training
call for an assessment of the “aptitude requirements of new systems.” For example,
AR 602-2, Manpower and Personnel Integration (MANPRINT) in the Materiel
Acquisition Process, requires that “For material with a predominant human
interface, it is critical to collect and evaluate human performance reliability data to
determine whether the proposed system concept will deliver expected
performance with no greater aptitudes and no more training than planned.” DOD
Directive 5000.53, Manpower, Personnel, Training, and Safety in the Defense
Acquisition Process, requires that descriptions of the “quality and quantity of
military personnel” needed to field a system be developed and updated during the
acquisition process. The directive indicates that the descriptions of military
personnel quality requirements “shall include distributions of skill, grade, aptitude,
anthropometric and/or physical attributes, education, and training backgrounds.”
KEY QUESTIONS RELATED TO APTITUDE ASSESSMENT FOR NEW SYSTEMS
Aptitude assessments for new weapon systems seek to address two basic questions:
Question I: Can the svstem be successfullv onerated and maintained bv the soldiers
WI
To determine if the system is successful, one must (a) identify the functions that
the system is supposed to perform, (b) identify the measures that can be used to
assess performance on these functions, (c) establish criteria for these measures,
(d) either collect “test’ data on or estimate system performance, and (e) compare
the system performance with the criteria. If performance exceeds the criteria, the
system is judged successful.
The term “by the soldiers who are expected to man it” implies detailed
consideration of soldier characteristics such as aptitudes. More specifically, it
assumes that data will be obtained from soldiers who are “representative” of the
soldiers who will actually be assigned to t.he system.
To identify “representative” soldiers, one must first identify the key personnel
characteristics which impact soldier performance. Aptitudes such as scores on
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery are especially important because they
are used by the Army to control entry into the Army or MOS. This is accomplished
by setting cut-offs or minimum acceptable scores on these characteristics.
The best way to select “representative” soldiers for inclusion in system testing is to
randomly sample from a population that has the same distribution of these
characteristics as the population of soIdiers who are expected to man the system.
However, future dislribution of these characteristics within a particular MOS may
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