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ERIC Number: ED561151
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 65
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: 978-0-8330-8424-8
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Elements of Success: How Type of Secondary Education Credential Helps Predict Enlistee Attrition
Burkhauser, Susan; Hanser, Lawrence M.; Hardison, Chaitra M.
RAND Corporation
The U.S. military services have traditionally used a tiering system, including education credentials such as high school diplomas, in combination with Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores to help gauge the likelihood of a recruit persevering through his or her first term of service. But what about less traditional credentials, such as diplomas earned through homeschooling and distance learning? The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) asked RAND to examine whether its current education-credential tiering policy is still useful in predicting first-term attrition. The authors examined attrition rates at 12, 24, and 36 months of service for all enlistees from 2000 through 2011. Using statistical regression techniques, they compared attrition rates for those with distance learning or homeschool credentials to those of high school diploma holders, after controlling for other observable population differences. Overall, the analyses support current tiering policy classifying homeschool diplomas as Tier 1 if a recruit's AFQT score is 50 or higher (i.e., they are treated the same as high school diploma holders) or Tier 2 if a recruit's AFQT score is lower than 50. The results also support classifying distance learning credentials as Tier 2 regardless of AFQT score. Four appendices are included: (1) Descriptive Statistics for Key Variables; (2) Effectiveness of the Propensity Weights; (3) Models Used in Doubly Robust Regression Analysis; and (4) Simple Logistic Regression Model. [This report was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This research was sponsored by the Director of Accession Policy in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of RAND's National Defense Research Institute.]
RAND Corporation. P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138. Tel: 877-584-8642; Tel: 310-451-7002; Fax: 412-802-4981; e-mail: order@rand.org; Web site: http://www.rand.org
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education; High Schools; High School Equivalency Programs; Adult Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: RAND National Defense Research Institute
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Armed Forces Qualification Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A