PROCEDURES FOR ASSIGNING CRITERION GRADES TO FAILURES AND TURNBACKS IN ARMY SCHOOL COURSES
Abstract
A large-scale validation study of experimental and operational tests was conducted across the full range of the Army's military occupational specialties (MOS). The experimental tests of the Army Differential MOS Battery (ADMOSB) were administered to about 25,000 enlisted men in over 100 Army school training courses. This report deals with the methodological problem of assigning grades to academic failures and turnbacks. Three alternative methods of assigning criterion course grades to academic failures were analyzed for two Army School (MOS) courses to determine which method provided the most appropriate criterion measure. No one method showed a marked advantage for the failures and the decision was made to assign a single score for all failures at a point one standard deviation below the minimum passing score. In the case of academic turnbacks, the primary consideration was whether grades assigned by the schools were inflated by the longer instructional time. Since results indicated that grades of the turnbacks were lower than for the regular passers, no compensatory downward adjustment for the validation analysis was necessary. Grades assigned by the schools for this group were therefore accepted. Those for whom no school grades were available were assigned a score one standard deviation below the mean of the regular passers. By use of the procedures developed on basis of the analyses, samples reflecting the full range of Army School training performance could be used in validating the experimental differential classification battery and biasing effects of excluding segments of the sample or of assigning judgmental scores were avoided.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0833582
Entities
People
- Milton H. Maier
Organizations
- United States Army Research Laboratory