Development of Air Force Foundational Competency Assessments

Abstract

This report describes development and validation of two types of assessments for evaluating Air Force members (enlisted, officer, or civilian) on the 22 Air Force Foundational Competencies. These include: (1) a kneeboard rubric identifying behaviors corresponding to increasing levels of proficiency (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert) on each competency, and (2) a brief Likert-type assessment to efficiently provide feedback on one's strengths and weaknesses among the 22 competencies (designed for use as a developmental 360 assessment on myVector). Assessments were developed by AETC/A3J staff based on review of competency measures from the research literature with adaptation to the Air Force context, and recommendations from retired Air Force General Officers on observable behaviors distinguishing Air Force members who excel on each competency. The report describes initial content validation, followed by a criterion-related validation survey in which Air Force supervisors rated the extent to which high potential and lower-potential members they had worked with demonstrated effectiveness on a total of 584 competency behaviors. We report scale reliability and evaluate convergent and divergent validity of the Foundational Competency assessments, demonstrating stronger relationships between scores on the two assessments of each individual competency (kneeboard and myVector assessment) than between scales designed to assess distinct, though theoretically closely related competencies. Finally, we compare criterion-related validity of the Foundational Competency scales to that of other measures used within the Air Force (AF 724 and AF 931), finding strong validity of the newly developed Foundational Competency assessments overall.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2020
Accession Number
AD1120209

Entities

People

  • Laura Barron
  • Patrick Rolwes

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Air Force
  • Applied Psychology
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Best Practices
  • Consistency
  • Education
  • General Officers
  • Human Behavior
  • Leadership
  • Management Personnel
  • Military Education
  • Military Training
  • Motivation
  • Personality
  • Professional Development
  • Psychology
  • Reliability
  • Resilience
  • Resource Management
  • Standards
  • Supervisors
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Thinking
  • Training

Readers

  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).
  • Psychometric Testing or Psychological Assessment.