Do Air Force Personnel Broaden Their Skills During Deployments?

Abstract

U.S. Air Force personnel are typically trained to perform jobs in a specific occupational category. However, they may be called upon to perform a variety of jobs during their military careers. Recognizing this, the Air Force has set goals that will require some personnel to acquire skills and competencies in more than one occupational category. For example, an individual with expertise in operations may need to expand his/her understanding of strategy or to improve his/her leadership skills. To assist the Air Force in this effort, RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) conducted a survey to identify the settings in which individuals learn occupational skills and universal competencies outside of their primary occupations, with an emphasis on deployments. Occupational skills are specific to a particular occupation. Universal competencies are applicable across job categories and are expected to some extent among all Air Force personnel. PAF surveyed officers and enlisted personnel who had recently returned from Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) and Eskan Village (a military housing facility) in Saudi Arabia. The two locations were selected because the Air Force had identified deployments as a likely setting for substantial learning and because a large number of Air Force personnel in a wide variety of occupations were deployed there. Respondents were asked to consider a broad range of skills and competencies and to rank the environments that were most conducive to learning. Environments included initial and mid-career training, the PSAB/Eskan deployment, other deployments, and settings outside the Air Force. Major findings include the following: personnel learn skills outside of their specialty during deployments, and personnel identified the PSAB/Eskan Village deployment as the best environment for learning more than one-third of the skills and competencies listed on the survey.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA426616

Entities

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Personnel
  • Deployment
  • Education
  • Electronic Mail
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Environment
  • Health Care
  • Homeland Security
  • Learning
  • National Security
  • Public Safety
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Security
  • Training
  • United States

Readers

  • Aerospace logistics and air mobility.
  • Occupational Health and Safety.
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).