Serves as introduction and background for remaining papers in this issue which describe major pieces of Army's Selection and Classification Project (Project A). Outlines principal objectives, methodology, and research design of Project A. Identifies overall objective of the project: to generate instrumentation and validity information database…

Describes events that led up to the decision to create a Request for Proposals for the Army's Selection and Classification Project (Project A) and considers the conditions that made it possible. Also discusses the conditions that seem necessary to maintain such a project over the course of its life cycle. (Author/NB)

Defines goal of criterion development in Army's Project A as construction of multiple measures of major components of job performance such that total performance domain for representative sample of population of Army entry-level enlisted positions was covered. Describes major steps in job analyses, content sampling, instrument construction, and…

Defines data base for Army Selection and Classification Project (Project A) as containing two major samples: concurrent validation sample and longitudinal validation sample. Describes data base resulting from concurrent sample, sampling procedure, distribution of sample sizes over jobs, total array of variables, and data collection procedures.…

Describes the Army's Project A effort to scale the relative utility of different levels of performance across entry-level jobs, or Military Occupational Specialties. Explains how combined procedure incorporating interval estimation and ratio estimation method was used to estimate utility of 5 different performance levels for each of 276 jobs.…

Describes characteristics of experimental predictor battery of tests developed to supplement the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery for making selection and classification decisions for entry-level enlisted personnel. Explains procedures used to develop new test battery. Basic psychometric properties of each measure, as determine by large…

Used data from 4,039 job incumbents from 9 military jobs to determine degree of validity generalization across major components of performance and degree of validity generalization across jobs within each major performance factor. Major findings were that different predictor equations were needed for each of 5 criterion factors. (Author/NB)

Describes Army's Project A attempt to model job performance in entry-level Army jobs. Describes research procedures used to develop basic array of up to 32 criterion scores for each of nine entry-level jobs and explains how this basic set of scores formed the starting point of attempt to model latent structure of performance in this population of…

Administered predictor battery of cognitive ability, perceptual-psychomotor ability, temperament/personality, interest, and job outcome preference measures to enlisted soldiers in nine Army jobs. Cognitive and perceptual-psychomotor scores provided best prediction of job-specific and general task proficiency. Findings suggest that Army can improve…