Photo By Senior Chief Petty Officer Ryan Wilber | Seabees on board Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport, Miss., complete a Navy...... read more read more
GULFPORT, Miss. - Personnel psychologists from Navy Personnel Research, Studies and Technology were on board Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport, Miss., administering personality tests and supervisor evaluations as part of a Navy classification initiative, Feb. 7-9.
NPRST, a department of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, has developed a set of tools that will someday help the Navy classify sailors, based on more individual information than Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery scores alone. As part of the process to ensure the quality of the new tests to validly predict how specific scores are related to important manpower and personnel outcomes, NPRST researchers are collecting test results from sailors representing all Navy communities.
“The Navy for years has been using ASVAB to classify sailors into positions. ASVAB is a very good predictor of how well people will do in 'A' School, however, when you actually look at job performance, fleet performance, job satisfaction, you find out that ASVAB doesn’t actually predict those as well as other non-cognitive indicators, such as personality and interests. The research that we’re doing is we’ve developed some tools to assess the personality, to assess interests and quantifying those in such a way that they can be useful for both recruiters and classifiers to help place young sailors into positions using information that hasn’t been used systematically before in that manner,” said Dr. Bill Farmer, a NPRST personnel psychologist.
Navy Computer Adaptive Personality Scales, consisting of 19 personality traits tied to the critical job/work requirements for all Navy ratings and Job Opportunities in the Navy, which matches sailor interest in particular work environments, work styles and broad characteristics, and maps them onto Navy ratings, are tools researchers from NPRST have been developed to assess sailor personality and interests.
“From a classification perspective, we will be able to take scores from NCAPS and some of the interest measures and actually combine those with ASVAB scores, so that when we create composites, what we call selection composites, that we use currently to classify individuals, which are based on a particular ASVAB test and what those tests are that used to classify people into particular ratings is different depending on what the rating is. We can also use personality trait scores in combination with ASVAB scores so that when we’re actually classifying someone we’re not classifying them based on their probability solely of being able to get through a particular 'A' School pipeline, but we’re also classifying them on the probability that they would be fulfilled and satisfied with a particular job that they are going into,” said Farmer.
Senior Chief Navy Counselor Jake Brady, career counselor immediate superior-in-command assigned to 20th Seabee Readiness Group, and personality test-taker, said he feels using personality as a factor used in classifying will be good for the Navy and for the sailor.
It’s going to be a better way to the future. It’s going to be a better way to get the right fit, the right sailor doing the right job in the right location, and I’m kind of excited to see how it will work. I think we’ll have less personal failure, because we’ll be able to get them into jobs they’ll like and they’ll want to do and they’re good at, said Brady.
Personality testing is not a new concept. According to Farmer, non-cognitive measures have been used in the civilian sector for years, and that 80 to 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies use some kind of personality assessment.
“The idea for using personality or non-cognitive measures, those traits that are not particularly, or not specifically geared towards problem solving much the way that the ASVAB is geared toward, has actually been out there for a number of years. There have been efforts not only within the Navy, but also in the other services, the Department of Defense as a whole, to look at non-cognitive measures that go back into the 1970s, pretty much when we became an all-volunteer force after the Vietnam era. They were looking at other factors they knew were going to be important to what job they were going to be in, because they knew that these factors were important for determining job satisfaction, work fulfillment, things that we didn’t normally consider when we were operating under a draft. It has only been in the last 10 years, however, that we’ve seriously been able to look at it and have the technology that we could actually measure personality effectively to the same level of accuracy that we’re able to measure problem solving ability, things we measure with the ASVAB,” said Farmer.
Several Seabees taking the test said they have experienced personality play a part on the job site. Builder 1st Class Kyle Saylor, assigned to 20 SRG, Contingency Construction Crew Training, and Builder 3rd Class Tessa Penny, assigned to NCBC, Master-At-Arms Department, both took the personality test and said they feel it will be a good thing.
“Personalities can impact the work spaces. If you have conflicting personalities, people don’t necessarily want to work together as well as people that get along, so everything kind of tends to flow better when all your personalities somewhat mesh,” said Saylor. “I think it is a good strategy to designate people’s jobs,” added Penny.
According to NPRST, implementation of personality as a factor in classifying is projected for 2020. Brady, a strong supporter of personality measures, said he feels that it cannot be implemented soon enough.
“I am in full support of the personality testing, and I hope it comes out sooner than later,” said Brady.
| Date Taken: | 02.09.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 02.24.2012 15:33 |
| Story ID: | 84312 |
| Location: | GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI, US |
| Web Views: | 471 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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