I__. - International Military Testing Association

I
AFI’ITUDE ASSESSMENT TOOLS FOR NEW SYSTEMS
As part of the HARDMAN 111 program, the Army Research Institute (ARI) has
developed two microcomputer-based tools that can be used to assist Army analysts
in identifying aptitude requirements and constraints for new systems--the
Personnel Constraints Aid or P-CON and the Personnel-Based System Evaluation
Aid or PERSEVAL. 1
P-CON. estimates personnel quality constraints. More specifically, the P-CON Aid
estimates the future distribution of key personnel characteristics. These
distributions describe the numbers and percentage of personnel that will be
available at each level of the personnel characteristics. The P-CON Aid also
provides guidance to help Army analysts and contractors understand the impacis of
setting constraints at different personnel characteristic levels. For example, the
P-CON Aid will display the levels of performance that can be expected at each of
these levels. An analyst can us’e the information on expected performance to set
personnel constraint levels for each characteristic.
The P-CON Aid first estimates what the future distribution of the personnel
characteristics will be. Then, it uses results from analyses of the Project A data
base to show what levels of performance are achievable at different characteristic
levels. The user may then use the information on both personnel availability and
performance to identify minimum acceptable levels for each personnel
characteristic.
PER-SEVAL. The PER-SEVAL Aid determines what level of personnel
characteristics is needed to meet system performance requirements given a
particular contractor’s design, fixed amounts of training, and the specific
conditions of performance under which the system tasks will be performed.
The PER-SEVAL Aid has three -basic components. First, PER-SEVAL has a set of
performance shaping functions that predict performance as a function of ASVAB
area composite and training. Separate functions are provided for different types of
tasks. The primary data source for developing the functions were results from a
regression analyses from the Project A data base. Second, the PER-SEVAL Aid has
a set of stressor degradation algorithms that degrade performance to reflect the
presence of critical environmental stressors. Third, the PER-SEVAL Aid has a set
of operator and maintainer models that aggregate the performance estimates of
individual tasks and produce estimates of system performance.
RECONCILING THE JOB-BASED SYSTEM AND SYSTEM-BASED APPROACH TO
APTITUDE REQUIREMENTS ASSESSMENT
Assessment of aptitude requirements requires consideration of the impact of
aptitudes on “performance”. The personnel and the system development
communities have different conceptualizations of performance. The personnel
community tends to focus on “job performance” while the system development
1 HARDMAN III is a major developmental effort of ARI’s System Research
Laboratory. Its objective is to develop a set of automated aids to assist Army analysts
in conducting MANPRINT assessments during the Materiel Acquisition Process
(MAP).
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