Follow-on Analysis of PAY 97 Test Scores
Published Date: July 1, 2001
In 1997, in a joint effort, the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Defense (DOD)collected aptitude test data from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery )ASVAB) on a nationally representative sample of youth. The tests were administered as part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). A subset of data pertaining to youth 18 to 23 years of age is referred to as the Profile of American Youth (PAY 97). In 1999 CNA conducted an initial analysis of PAY 97 test scores. We concluded that the data sample was missing a large number of persons likely to deplete both the upper and lower levels of aptitude distributions. We further concluded that the loss would bias resulting norms unless corrected. We recommended weighting the data by race, gender, age, respondent's education, and a proxy for social economic status in an effort to correct the bias. The data were subsequently weighted by NORC. This report describes the follow-on analysis that we conducted on PAY 97 test scores. This work was funded by the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC).
