Affordable and Creditable Procedures for Determining Occupational Learning Difficulty
Abstract
Air Force management assures a high quality workforce by maintaining appropriate entry-level aptitude standards. In the early 1980's, the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory (AFHRL) developed a method to determine minimum aptitude tests scores, based on Occupational Learning Difficulty (OLD), to be used as a screening criterion to qualify incoming airmen. The method involved procedures referred to as difficulty bench-marking. It required a team of occupational analysts to become familiar with benchmark rating scales (25-point scales with tasks of varying learning difficulties from different specialties within a given aptitude area). Team members would observe tasks from any given specialty and rate them for learning difficulty against the benchmark scale. This enabled relative measurement of the learning difficulty of specialties within a given aptitude area. The method proved too expensive in terms of funds and man-hours to be practical. This paper describes the research efforts to develop affordable and creditable procedures for determining OLD by investigating the use of judgmental task learning difficulty ratings by subject- matter experts. Keywords: Benchmarking; Manpower; Personnel; Training; Occupational learning difficulty; Subject-matter experts; Task difficulty.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA214449
Entities
People
- Phillip A. Davis
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory