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Shenk, FayePredictability of Expressed Career Intent.Air Force Human Resources Lab., Lackland AFB, Tex.Personnel Research Div.AFHRL-TR-72-25Mar 7218p.National Technical Information Service, Springfield,Va. 22151 (AD-749 093)

MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29*Armed Forces; Career Choice; *Career Planning;Longitudinal Studies; *Military Personnel;*Occupational Choice; Prediction; *PredictiveValidity

An historical study of officer input from the variousAir Force commissioning programs was initiated in 1963. The study wasdesigned to determine the predictability of an Air Force officer'scareer decision and to evaluate relationships between career intentand demographic, environmental, and attitudinal factors.Career-intention information for this group has been compiled for theperiod prior to commissioning up to five years of active duty. Thisreport presents a description of the career-intent statementreliability and validity with career status as of December 1969.Subjects entering the Air Force through the Officer TrainingSchool "Airmen Education and Commissioning Program and OfficerCandidate School had the highest percntage of officers remaining onactive duty. Correlations between precommi$sion career intent and thecriterion were generally low; however, there was a consistentincrease in predictability for data from succeeding years.(Author)

PREDICTABILITY OF EXPRESSED CAREER INTENT

Faye Shenk

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Air Force Systems CommandBrooks Air Force Rise, TexasMarch 1972

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PREDICTABILITY OF EXPRESSED CAREER INTENT

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March 1972

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PREDICTABILITY OF EXPRESSED CAREER INTENT

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11 suPPLEMENTAR., NOTES 13. SPONSORING MILITARY ACTIVITYPersonnel Research DivisionAir Force Human Resources LaboratoryAir Force Systems CommandLackland Air Force Base. Texas 7823613. ABSTRACT

--,An historical study of officer input from the various Air Force commissioning programs was initiated in 1963.The study was designed to determine the predictability of an Air Force officer's career decision and to evaluaterelationships between career intent and demographic, environmental, and attitudinal factors. Career-intenti,7:ninformation for this r,-.),Ir. has Ire:, compiled for the neriod prior to comrniss.toning up to five )cars ref active J-Jt). . T::::report presents a description of the careerintent statement reliability and validity with career status as of December1969. Subjects entering the Air Force through the Officer Training SchoolAirmen Education and Cominiss:oningProgram and Officer Candidate School had the highest percentage of officers remaining on active duty. Correlationsbetween precommission career intent and the criterion were generally low; however, there was a consistent increase inpredictability for data from succeeding years. -

...

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KEY WOROSLINK A LINK 0 Ltzi< ...

ROLE vd7 POLE WT POLE' .7

career intentretentionUSAF Officer Active Duty Surveycareer imittides

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Security Clessification

AFHRL-TR-72-25 March 1972

PREDICTABILITY OF EXPRESSED CAREER INTENT

By

Faye Shenk

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited.

PERSONNEL RESEARCH DIVISIONAIR FORCE HUMAN RESOURCES LABORATORY

AIR FORCE SYSTEMS COMMANDCackIane Air Force Base. Texas

FOREWORD

This research was completed under Project 7719, Air Force Personnel SystemDevelopment on Selection, Assignment, Evaluation. Quality Control, Retention,Promotion, and Utilization; Task 771202., Analysis of Major Factors Related to CareerDecisions and Retention.

This report is part of a series in a continuing evaluation of a sample of officers whoentered the Air Force during 1963 and 1964 as second lieutenants. This longitudinalstudy was designed to evaluate reported career intentions and various demographic,environmental, and attitudinal factors which influence career selection or nonselection.Other reports in this series include PRL-TR-65-2 USAF Officer Career Decisions:Predictability of Initial Career Intent; PRL-TR-67-10, USAF Officer Career Intent afterFirst Year of Active Duty; AFHRL-TR-69.33, Career Indications among Junior Officers;AFHRL-TR-70-49, Changes in Career Intent During Initial Tour of Active Duty.

This report has been reviewed and is approved.

George K. Patterson, Colonel, USAFCommander

ii

ABSTRACT

An historical study of officer input from the various Air Force commissioningprograms was initiated in 1963. The study was designed to determine the predictability ofan Air Force officer's career decision and to evaluate relationships between career intentand demographic, environmental, and attitudinal facto's. Career-intention informationfor this group has been compiled for the period prior to commissioning up to five years ofactive duty. This report presents a description of the (veer-intent statement reliabilityand validity with career status as of December 1969. Subjects entering the Air Forcethrough the Officer Training SchoolAirmen Education and Commissioning Program andOfficer-Candidate SchOol.had the highest percetitage.of officers remaining on active duty.Correlations between precommission career intent and the criterion were generally low;however, there was a consistent increase in predictability for data from succeeding year

(

41$

1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

I. Introduc tion 1

H. Procedure 1

III. Results 1

IV. Conclusions . 8

References 9

LIST OF TABLES

Table1 Distributions for Career Status Groups of Officers Completing Career-Intent Surveys

2 Percentages of Commissioning Source Subsamples and Total Sample IndicatingFavorable and Unfavorable Attitudes Toward an Air Force Career onPrecommissioning and Yearly Surveys

3 Intercorrelations Between Careerintent Statements for Surveys Administeredat Two Points in Time and Between Career Intent and Career Statusas of December 1969

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

7

Figure PageI Percentages of total sample indicating favorable and unfavorable

attitudes toward an Air Force career on precommissioning and yearly surveys 4

2 Percentages of commissioning source subsamples indicating favorableattitudes toward an Air Force career on precommissioning and yearly surveys 5

3 Percentages of commissioning source subsamples indicating unfavorableattitudes toward an Air Force career on precommissioning and yearly surveys 6

4 Correlations between careerintent statements and career status 8

V

Prec::!!ng page blank

PREDICTABILITY OF EXPRESSED CAREER INTENT

1. INTRODUCTION

In 1963 an historical study of officer inputfrom the principal Mr Force commissioningsources was initiated (Ewing R Alvord, 1965). Thisstudy has three objectives: to determine thestability of career intent through the initialobligated tour of active duty; to examine relation-ships between career, intent and .backgroundcharacteristics' and to examine relationships ofattitude changes to perferinaitce, sctvice lifeexpelien,:c, job atisfa.:, tion, and actual selection ofAn Mr Force career.

11. PROCEDURE

The original sample (N = 5.609) was selectedfrom officers scheduled to enter the Air Forceduring 1963 and 1964 as second lieutenants. The

,-''''sample consisted Of officer trainees and newlycommissioned officers from the Air Force ReserveOfficerTrajning Corps (AFROTC), OfficerTraining School (OTS), Officer Training SchoolAinnan Education and Commissioning Piogram(OTS-AECP), Officer Candidate School (OCS), AirForce Academy (AFA), United States MilitaryAcademy (USMA), and United States NavalAcademy '(USNA). The sample was homogeneouswith respect to length of service and grade.

Questionnaires were used to accumulate datafrom individuals in the initial sample. The subjecnswere surveyed before they en tered.active duty andthen resurveyed each year through five years ofactive military service: Information on the samplehas been compiled and intermediate results, usingexpressed career intent as the intermediate

1Subjects who were still on active duty (Career group)may have incurred additional obligations, but for thisreport they were termed "career" if they were still in theAir Force, having completed more than five years ofactive duty.

2Records for subjects were in the process of beingchanged or deleted; e.g., a subject inay have been verifiedas a "loss," therefore deleted from the Active Duty Filebut not yet added to the Loss File.

3Normal tour of duty refers to a four.year obligationexcept for subjects who enter training programs, such aspilots and navigators, who would have a five-yearobligation.

1

Criterion, have been published (Ewing,. _1967'Shenk, 1969; Shenk, 1970).

Career status was determined for these subjectsby matching with the Unifonn Officer Record(L'OR) Active Duty and Loss Tap,: Files as ofDecember 1969. After matching with the UORtape files, the. subjects were divided into thefollowing categories: Career, Noncareer, Inactive,and UnknoWn. The Carer group representssubjects who Were sill on active 'duty' as 01December 1969,1 The Noncareer group representssubjects who had a date of loss between 1963 and1969. Inactive cases are those which were. in atransition stage on the UOR Files.2 Finally', theUnknown represent subjects for whom initial datawere missing (such as AFSN) and for whom nomatch was made on the UOR tape files.

III. RESULTS

The nu.aber and percentage of subjects in eachof the groups (Career, Noncareer, Inactive, andUnknown) are shown by source of commissionand for the total sample in Table 1. Fifty-threepercent of the original total, sample were identifiedas Career (on active duty in December :969), and36 percent of this sample were confirmed as-Non-career (lost to the Air Force). In--addition, 4percent of the total group were classified Inactiveand 7 percent Unknown. The largest percentage ofsubjects in the Unknown group were AFROTCcadets who had missing information in the pre-commission phase of the study. Among the variousCommissioning sources, OTS-AECP and OCS hadthe largest percentages of subjects still on activeduty (88 percent and 70 percent, respectively) atthe completion of a normal tow of duty.; This issignificant in that these source. represent officerswho have had prior military -service and who mayhave attained their college degree Throligh an AirForce sponsored program. The various militaryacademies showed the next highest percentages ofsubjects in the Career group (AFA, 65 percent;USMA, 62 percent; USNA, 59 percent); AFROTCand .OTS followed with 53 percent and 46 percentstill acdve duty. These data provide ane stima 'clit 'mien tion for..a specific input 'sample(1963 -and "1964) -as of Decem6er 1969, by which

Table I. Distributions for Career Status Groups' of Officers CompletingCareer-Intent Surveys

( .ta ur Der. mfir best,- and 1,O.TT riles)

Source ofCommission

Career Noncareer Inactive Unknown Tota.

N %

AFA 25'S 65 130 29 24 5 0 442 99

OTS 684 4(.) 735 50 30 2 34 2 1,484 100OTS-AEC1 111 88 13 10 1 1 1 1 126 100AFROTC 1.760 53 1,087 33 146 4 345 10 3,338 100USMA 30 62 18 38 0 - 0 48 100

33 5m 36 3 5 0 t) 100OCS t.;1.) 0 24 21 1 1 . 10 9 115 101

lot.11 1028 .7,6 4 3,:0 7 5.609 100

aCroups defi,.ed as IcIlt,.ys: Careeron active duty as of Deceir.het 1969; Noncareerdate of loss between 1963and 1969: Inacti -ia transition sta;:.... on UOR Ui:l.nowtiinitial data missin.t, no match on UOR files

Note. Surveys were scot to the AFA, USMA. and USNA cadets scheduled to graduate in June 1963. OTS subjectsbegan with Clasi 63-H. OCS subjects :vet the last class (63 D) which graduated in June ]9G3. AFROTC subject:. ware AirScience IV ezders sehodui.:d to graduate between January and June of 1964. The relatively large number of AF;.r...aTcsubjects in the unlui,wn category is partly-a function of subjects had an educational delay, subjects eliminated fromthe AFROTC protarn, and subjects without AFSN identification.

time the subjects would have completed a nmmaltour of active duty. Comparisons are made for thetotal sample and for the various sources ofcommission.

One of the aims of the present study was todetermine the magnitude of career interest ofofficers at the moment of entry to active duty andto determine the predictability of expressed careerintent. In each of the surveys the subjects wereasked to indicate their attitude toward an AirForce career on a five-point scale from "Definitelyintend to make a career in the Air Force" to"Definitely do not intend to in, rte a career in theAir Force." In this way. expressed career intent ofthe officers was ()bylined each year from the pointprior to cominis3ioning op to five years of activeduty.

Table 2 gives the percentage of favorable (i.e.,"definitely" or "most likely" career-minded) andunfavorable (i.e.. "most likely not" or "definitelynot" career-minded) attitudes toward an Air Forcecareer for each year's survey by source ofcornniission and for the to:al croup, The percentages for Career and Noncareer subjects arepresented for comparison. These data are alsopresented graphically in Figures 1 through 3.

For the totti ,;a; ph. tho data generally show adecline in favorable career attitudes from the pre-commissioning point through the third year ofactive duty. From the third year of active duty,

the percentage of total subjects with favorableattitudes increased through the fifth year of activeduty. The percentage of subjects in the totalsample with favorable attitudes was generallytowerl than the percentage of subjects whoremained on active duty. In other words, the per-centage of individuals who remained on activeduty was higher than the percentage one wouldestimate based on the number of subjects indi-cating they had favorable attitudes toward amilitary career. There was a steady increase inpercentage of all subjects with nnfavorahleattitudes through the third year with a slightincrease at the fourth-year point and a drop at thefifth-year point. The fluctuation in unfavorableattitudes between the fourth and fifth year ofactive duty may have been a function of normalattrition. In other words, those officers with a dateof separation who had indicated an unfavorablecareer attitude left the Air Force after completingtheir four-year active duty commitment. Asillustrated in Figure 1, the percentage of subjectswith unfavorable attitudes very closelyapproximated tit perocnta:e of noncareer storjectsat the third-year point. Since this was also thepoint in time at which the percentage of favorableattitudes began to increase steadily, it may be anindication of a critical decision point. These dataare presented for each source of corniajf,ion inFigures 2 and 3. Subjects from the OTS-AEC? andOCS sources accounted for the highest percentages

Tab

le 2

. Per

cent

ages

of C

omm

issi

onin

g S

ourc

e S

ubsa

mpl

es a

nd T

otal

Sm

Indi

catin

g F

avor

able

and

Unf

avor

able

Atti

tude

s T

owar

d an

Air

For

ce C

arr

on P

reco

nuni

ssio

lling

and

Yea

rly S

urve

ys'

Sou

rce

ofC

omn.

issI

on

Pre

com

mis

slon

(N =

5.3

96)

1st y

r(N

= 4

.357

)2d

yr

(N =

3,0

97)

3t1

yr(N

= 4

,136

)4t

h yt

(N =

3,3

001

5th

yr(N

= 3

,075

)

Fav

or-

able

Unf

a-vo

rabl

eF

allo

rab

leU

nfa-

vora

ble

Fav

orab

leU

nfa-

vora

ble

Fav

or-

able

Unf

a-vo

rabl

eF

avor

-ab

leU

nfa-

vora

blc

Fav

or-

able

Unf

avo

rabl

e

AF

A78

376

667

1151

2459

....

22)59

24

OT

S41

1436

2836

3532

4443

4258

28O

TS

-AE

CP

913

874

846

8214

8311

746

Am

ow37

18.4

420

3926

3342

c37

4742

40U

SM

A61

1058

961

1650

2050

2158

26

US

NA

50II

4722

3731

3140

4240

562$

OC

S82

782

786

782

104

899

89o

Tot

al44

1547

2143

2637

3943

4151

33

Tot

al S

ampl

e(N

= 5

,609

)

Nen

-C

aree

rca

reer

6529

4050

8810

5333

6238

sp36

5921

5336

'The

per

cent

ages

fav

orab

le a

nd u

nfav

orab

le a

rc b

ased

on

thos

e ca

ses

with

a c

aree

r-in

tent

res

pons

e fo

r th

at p

artic

ular

yea

r. T

he N

s gi

ven

repr

esen

t the

tota

l num

ber

ofca

ses

with

a c

aree

r-in

tent

res

pons

e fo

r th

at y

ear.

Survey Favorable Career AttitudefTrIn

%Precom mission 7:-77. . . rrit Yr211 yr3rd yr4th yr5th yr

Precommisslon1st yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

.

i.:.'..:- ,.. .:... . :....,,: .:.:...',.:.:Z...

rtr:---.:....;,:;77:::----:, -r:r:7r-:!--,i:H'.:'-',.:777-_,._.71:;:%;:,;:;:::4*:-:,..'.......i:::!:4":"."!:1';'!:";;'?;:;:':'':''1

I

IUnfavorable Career Attitude7:117n.77:1f., ':: 'f''' ',!77,7:

. .. -7: -::.. .. _...., ''..... ......

I 10 20 40 60

Pereent80 100

Fig. I. Pereentages of total sample indicating favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward an AirForce career on precommissionirrg and yearly si.rrv,eys. slid vertical line represents the percentagethe total sample identified as ,:areer: the broken vertical line represents the percentage identifiednon-career.)

of favorable attitudes, a finding that is consistentwith the fact that these sources showed the highestpercentage of career subjects. AFA and USINIAsources followed a similar pattern in percentage ofsubjects with favorable attitudes, and USNA,AFROTC, and OTS sources grouped together toform a similar trend.

For those subjects identified as career and non-career, correlations between the career-intentstatements in each of the yearly surveys withcareer status are presented in Table 3. Correlationsbetween yearly career-intent statements and careerstatus were generally lower at all time intervalsthan correlations between adjacent yearly career-intent statements. In the total sample, the correla-tion between career-intent statements and careerstatus increased each year: the closer the subjectcame to the completion of a normal tour, themore reliable this expressed career intent. Forinstance, in tile total sample the correlationbetween career intent expressed prior tocommissioning and career status as of December1969 was .24. After one year active duty, thecorrelation between these two factors (careerintent and career status) increased to .41. Thisrelationship between expressed career intent andcareer status increased for each additional year ofactive duty. except for the fifth year. The decreasein correlation for the fifth -year point in the totalsample was probably due to a restriction in range.By this time, the majority of the subjects hadcompleted their normal tour of duty and electedto remain or leave the Air Force. (The number ofsubjects completing the fifth-year survey was3,075 compared to the original N of 5,609.)Contrasted with the increase in predictability asthe subject arproached .a decision point, there was

4

a decrease in prediction across time from one yearto the next. For instance, the precommission andfirst-year career-intent statements correlated .60:the precommission and second-year statements.51; the precommission and third-year statements.42, This decrease in prediction across time (valuesaway front the diagonal) and increase in correla-tion along the diagonal are characteristics of thesimplex theoty which is commonly found inmaturation and learning data. Humphreys (196G)states "... unless the correlations between increments-are unity, the correlation between any twomeasurement occasions will be less than unity andthat the further apart the measures are in the seriesthe lower will be the correlation between them.These properties coincide with the descriptivecharacteristics of the simplex (p. 315)." Thesimplex phone nenon has been noted in cyclicretesting with the same instrument in that retestcorrelations dpp steadily as time between admin-istrations increases. This phenomenon w:.sexhibited in the intercorrelation matrix showin..:the relationships between various career-intentstatements and between these statements andcareer status.

The predictability of the career-intent state-ment prior to commissioning was rather low: .24for the total sample with a range of .09 to .43 forthe individual sources. One may note that therewas a greater relationship between intent andcareer status for sources in which subjects wouldhave had more knowledge of the Air Force at theprecommission phase. For example, the correll,- .

tion between career status and irtent'at the pre-commissioning phase was A3 for OCS subjectscontrasted with a value of .16 for AFROTC.subjects who were still in college when surveyed. It

SurveyP recorn on

1st yr2d yr

- 3.d yrt.r.t1-..,

5-.ttth career 1-.::,-

Precornmission3 St yr

4..-

2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% career

Precommis, on1st yr2d yr3d yr4th ye5th yr

% career

Prec orran >si on1St yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

ti career

Precommission1st vr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% career

Precommirsion1st yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% career

Precommissiun1st Jr2c1 yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% career

/WA

;;;t::,:

: : r7rrr.rrre

OTSA EC P

. . ......... . .. .........- -

. . .r .";

. .. , t.

AFROTC

:'"4-":C..7:171.7.77.77:773

....t"'"t' iTr.1

USMA

. . . . .

;;,-;44:;4*..:": f-Y-7'-,..,:,:::.........77:7:7=.......7771.--,..;,44-,--'t

USNATI-Trr,',11-.77.,:r r+.n

.-......

-;14'. 0:4 &.;:,*;:;1;?."..i!..1:1:1"::" itHtttltitri

0 C S... . . .

.

'- - /y.

f'.;

20 40 60 SO 100

PercentFig. 2. Percentages of commissioning source subsamples indicating favorable attitudes toward an Air

Force career on precommissioning and yearly surveys. (The solid vertical line represents percentage of totalsample identified as career. The "% career" bar indicates the percentage of the subsample identified as careeras of December 1969).

SurreyPre,ornrith;:ort 7-3

1st yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

tI noncareer

.- . ...- . ...

. . ......... . .......

AF.4

Precom m ss i on C::::'::77.7.7:77.7":7:7::-.11st yr

Jtl yr4th yr5th yr

% noncareer

Precommisslon1st yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% noncareer

Precommisslon1st yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% noncareer

Precommisslon1st yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% noncareer

Precommisslon1st yr2d yr3d yr4th yr5th yr

% noncareer

Precommisslon1st yr2d yr'3d yr4th yr5th yr

% non career

: . !. I... 7 ' 71

OTS

. .- . . . . . . . . . . . .'-` - - - "0. .

:.1:4:tttltu..

; rt:41*- 4.7

OTSAECP

AFROTC

USMA

USNA

0 20

OCS

40 60 80 100Percent

Fig. 3. Percentages of commis;ionin0 source subsamples indicating unfavorable attitudes toward anAir Force career on precommissioning and yearly surveys. (The solid vertical line represents percentage oftotal sample identified as noncareer. ire "7;:, noncareer" bar indicates the percentage of the subsampleidentified as noncareer as of December 1969.)

6

Table 3. Int eicorrelations Between Career-Intent Statements for Surveys Administeredat Two Points in Time and Between Career Intent and Career Status as of December 1969

Correlation between surveys Correlationbete/coin career

intent andcareer status

Correlation between surveys Correlationbetween career

Intent andCareer statusSurvey

1st 24 3d 4th Sthyr yr yr yr yr

1st 2d 3d 4th Sthyr yr yr yr yr

AFA (.'recommission N = 442) USMA (Precommission N = 48)Pic-col-omission .47 .42 .33 .29 .2Y .59 .47 .40 .20 .16 .121st yr .64 .57 .48 .39 .30 .82 .55 .19 .43 .292d yr .67 .57 .38 .37 .73 .36 .35 .293d yr .69 .50 .46 .29 .51 .514th yr .67 .54 .31 .22Sili yr .66 .51

OT:.; 1.4S4) USNA (Precommission N = 56).59 .46 .4' .37 ."6 .32 .55 .36 -.03 .28 .15 .09

1st yr .66 .57 .47 .35 .39 .68 .30 .35 .41 .412d yr .69 .58 .46 .49 .62 .63 .59 .593d yr .68 .52 .58 .67 .56.. .524th yr .72 .72 .72 .665th yr .69 .78

OTS-AECP (Precommission N = 126) OCS (Precommission N = 115)Precommission .52 .58 .46 .44 .40 .32 .68 .56 .43 .49 .56 .431st yr .79 .59 .64 .63 .41 .87 .66 .53 .51 .562d yr .71 .71 .49 .49 .61 .39 .44 .313d yr .77 .59 .63 .70 .48 .454th yr .74 .79 .63 .485th yr .56 .49

AFROTC (Precommission N == 3,338) Total Sample (Precommission N = 5,609)Precommission .56 .47 .38 .35 .29 .16 .60 .51 .42 .41 .33 .241st yr .68 .53 .48 .31 .38 .71 .58 .51 .37 .412d yr .65 .58 .45 .47 .68 .61 .46. .493d yr .73 .60 .54 .73 .58 .554th yr .75 .63 .74 .655th yr .43 .52

is of interest .to see that while the correlationsbetween the preccmmi:sion intent and thecriterion were generally low, a substantial increasein prediction for the total sample was obtainedafter the subjects had completed one year of activeduty. Using the precommission career-intent state-ment alone, a 2.97 percent reduction in error forp 11'2 career status was obtained; based on thefirst-year active duty career-intent statement, an8.79 percent reduction in error was obtained.While these percentages (index of ForecastingEfficiency) are quite small. the values attain moresignificance when the numiTer of offi..:ers invovedin various training programs and the cost of thesetraining programs are considered.

4 Tests for significance between multiple Rs were notmade rinse the numbcr of st:bjeets responding to thecareer-intent statement varied for each year.

7

To further examine the predictability of thecareer-intent statements, multiple correlationswere computed for various combinations of theyearly career-intent statement. Graphs depictingthese multiple correlations between variouscareer-intent statements and career status for thetotal sample are presented in Figure 4. The Index.of Forecasting Efficiency is also shown on thegraphs. From examining this chart, one candetermine the predictability of the initialcareer-intent statement and the increase obtainedby adding subsequent career-intent statements.For example. the precommission careerintentstatement combined with the first-year expressedattitude yielded a multiple R of .41.4 This resultwas an increase in prediction over theprecommission response: however, the first-yearstatement alone correlated .41 with career status.In this instance, the precommission career-intentstatement did not contribute anything beyond

CareerIntent StatementPrecommission 2.97Pre + 1st yr 8.60

Pre + 1st. 2d. 3d yr1183.Pie + 1st. 2d yr .4302

Pre + 1st. 2C, 2C. ath yr : .25.82

.

Pre + ist. 2cl. 3c. 4:h, 5th yr 22.17

1st yr survey1st + 2d1st + 2d. 311st 2d, 3d, th1st 4 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th

2d yr survrlyZd + ar.120 + ad, 4 th20 4- 41n, 5th

3d yr survey30 + 4th3d + 4th, 5th

4th yr survey4th + 5th

-1:.-.. '41

8.7913.2818.0625.2025.41

12.8317.9825.2225.29

16.4824.8124.97

24.0124.23

0 20 40 60 80 E

Co rrelation.

Fig. 4. Correlations between career-intent statements and career status.

Explanation

The solid vertical line indicates the correlation between career intent and career status for the initialcareer-intent statement. For example, for the precommission data, the correlation between precommissioncareer intent and career status was .24. The line represents the gain in prediction for the various yearlycareer intent statement combinations given below. The total length of the bar represents the multiplecorrelation between the specified career-intent statements and career status. The shaded portion of the barrepresents the increase in prediction over that obtained by using the last career-intent statement in themultiple prediction. For instance, for the precommission data, the first-year career-intent statementcorrelated .41 with career status, In this instance, there was no increase in prediction when ii!eprecommission and first-year career-intent statements were both used to predict career status over thatobtained by using the first-year career-intent statement alone. However, when the precommission, first andsecond-year career-intent statements were all used to predict career status, the multiple correlation was .50while the second-year career-intent statement alone was .49, an increase of .01.

variance accounted for in the first-year statement.The prediction for each individual career-intentstatement increased as length of service increased.The maximum multiple R (.67) in this set wasobtained trin': the precommission flirough thefourth-year career-intent statements; however, thisfigure shows only a slight increase in the variancebeyond the contribution of the fourth-yearstatenrnt alone. These graphs. illustrating thepoint that the inciiidu;:l's attitu.zie is :n6re reliableas he approaches a. decision point, show theincrease in prediction obtained from one year tothe next.

S

Iv. CONCLUSIONS

Of the original 5,609 subjects in the samplewho entered the Air Force during 1963 and 1964:53 percent were on active duty as of December1969. Thirty-six percent of these subjects wereconfirmed losses to the Air Force. The remainingsubjects were classified inactive or unknown.Subjects entering the Air Force. through theOTSAECP and OCS progra!ns showed theitiLthiestretainability at this point. The various militaryacademies generally represented the next highestretention rates, followed by AFROTC and OTS.

Although correlations between the precommissionexpiessed meer intent and the criterion of careeror noncaieer status were generally there was asubstantial increase in prediction obtained afterthe subjects had completed one year of activeduty.

AdditioNal research will determine whatfactors, if any, are predictive of career intent andcareer decision. An attempt will be .made toanswer several questions: For instance, is itpossible or practical to create a career

.;:,2 for Lii. in early sale,, .:on of

candidates for the various officer trainingprograms? And, do such factors as type of assign-ment received, educational training, and jobsatisfaction influence career decisions and eventualretention? Detailed analyses will include suchcomparisons as Duty Air Force Specialty versuscollege ma.or. changes in morital s:2tus. ree:ilar orreserve status, and aeronautical rating. in addinun,each of the survey items will be compared withcareer status. The file will be updated periodicallyto determine changes in career and noncareergroups.

REIT RENCI:S

Ewing, F. USAF officer career intent after firstyear of active duty. PRL-TR-67-10, AD-664037. Lackland AFB, Tex.: Personnel ResearchLaboratory, Aerospace Medical Division,August 1967.

Ewing, F., & Alvord, R.W. US/1F officer careerdecisions: Predictability of initial career intent.PRL-TR-65 -2, AD-613 333. Lackland AFB,Tex.: Personnel Research Laboratory. Aero-space Medical Division, February 1965.

Humphreys, L.G. Investigations of the simplex.Psvchometrika, 1960, 25(4), 313-323.

Shenk, F. Career indications among junior officers.AFHRL-T R-69-33, AD-703 '728. LacklandAFB, Tex.: Personnel Research Division, AirForce Human Resources Laboratory,September 1969.

Shenk, F. Changes in career intent during inirialtour of active duty. AFHRL-TR-70-49. AD-722408. Lackland AFB, Tex.: Personnel DiViSiOil.Air Force Human Resources Laboratory,

'December 1970.

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The U.S. Energy Problem, Volume I

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