Research for Quality

Syndicate content
Targeting Officer Recruiting Goals and Resources
July 1, 1993
The Marine Corps recruits and screens about 2,000 officer candidates annually. Recruiting minority candidates who meet its stringent standards, however, is not easy. Recruiting qualified minorities is especially difficult because of stiff competition from other services, industry, government, and the academic arena. Consider these statistics: (1) of male college graduates in 1990-1991, five percent were African-Americans, and three percent were Hispanics; (2) only two percent of males with Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores meeting USMC standards were African-American, and four percent Hispanic. It is clear that the Marine Corps must recruit more than a proportionate share of the qualified minority pool. Can the Marine Corps improve the way it allocates recruiting goals and resources to take advantage of regional variations in race/ethnicity. Headquarters Marine Corps asked CNA to help with this problem as part of its study of Successful Recruiting and Training of Marine Corps Officers. In this study, we also explored the relationship between officer candidate characteristics and success in Officer Candidate School, commissioning, and The Basic School. In addition, we looked at officer characteristics and promotions to captain and major.
Read More | Download Report
Future Russian Navy: The Human Factor
December 1, 1992
In this research memorandum, we present the findings of one portion of CNA's Future Russian Navy project, which was requested by the Director of Naval Intelligence. We examine what Russians commonly call 'the human factor' in naval affairs, or the set of issues concerned with attracting and retaining personnel and creating conditions that enable and encourage them to perform their missions. We look at three aspects of the human factor in turn: personnel procurement policy, day-to-day military economics, and the navy's relationship with society and local civilian officials. We discuss how the former Soviet Union traditionally approached each challenge and why the old approaches are failing today. We also describe the way the navy is functioning today, living with the residue of the old system, and adapting to cope with the changed environment. We conclude with an assessment of possible remedies to the Navy's human factor problem, and a discussion of current and prospective trends.
Read More | Download Report
Costs of Improving Recruit Aptitudes: A Joint Product Approach
November 1, 1992
This paper presents and applies a methodology for estimating the cost of recruiting individuals with alternative distributions of Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores. The methodology takes account of the key institutional features of the recruiting process, including recruiter time allocation and procedural guidelines. The method is used to estimate the costs of different recruit-aptitude distributions, using data on applicants and accessions for all of the services.
Read More | Download Report
Construction of Final Forms for a New Enlistment Screening Test
December 1, 1990
Two forms, each containing 35 verbal and 30 mathematics items, have been developed for a new Enlistment Screening Test (EST) to predict Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores of military applicants. These forms were constructed in two stages from items in discontinued versions of the Defense Department's test batteries. The first stage was to develop overlength forms from the available item pool. This research memorandum describes the second stage: constructing final forms by selecting items from the overlength forms. Item selection was based on the correlation of the item with AFQT, in a subsample of applicants with AFQT percentiles between 21 and 65. For each EST form, the AFQT score was predicted from the total score on the final EST items. The results were used to calculate expectancy tables which, for any given EST score, provide probabilities of exceeding the specified AFQT cutoffs. These probabilities are reported in tables.
Read More | Download Report
Identifying Successful Marine Corps Recruits
April 1, 1990
This research memorandum briefly reviews trends in Marine Corps first-term attrition and then analyzes recruit background characteristics and Marine Corps environment variables associated with successful adaptation to Marine Corps life. Three measures of success are examined: completion of the first term of service, completion of the first term of service at the rank of corporal, and retention beyond the initial service obligation.
Read More | Download Report
Effect of the GT Composite Requirement on Qualification Rates
March 1, 1990
This paper analyzes whether recent changes in the definition of the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) have reduced the supply of eligible Marine Corps applicants, and whether composites other than General Technical (GT) can increase eligibility rates appreciably.
Read More | Download Report
The Role of Student Quality in A-School Training Attrition: Trends in Selected Ratings
January 1, 1989
This research memorandum examines the extent and nature of attrition from initial skill (A-school) training in selected samples of technical and non-technical ratings. The influence of recruit-quality characteristics on both academic and nonacademic attrition rates is discussed. In addition, the analysis examines how attrition varies by type of A-school training and how it has changed over time.
Read More | Download Report
Relations Between Sustaining Engineering, Methods of Management, and System Quality
December 1, 1987
The relations between Sustaining Engineering (SE) usage, methods of management, and system quality are determined in this research memorandum. Principal components analysis was used to combine multiple measures of effectiveness into a single measure of aircraft quality and multiple program characteristics into a single measure of high-level management. Levels of SE usage were used with these measures to determine the relations, if any.
Read More | Download Report
Alternative Modeling Approaches for Setting Cost-Effective Qualification Standards
May 1, 1987
The Rand Corporation has developed a model that determines cost-effective enlistment standards for Military Occupational Specialties. Since this model may have an impact on enlistment policy, it is important that the modeling approach used to determine the enlistment standards be fully understood. This research memorandum describes the modeling technique used by the Rand Corporation and compares the Rand approach to alternative modeling methods in an attempt to determine the sensitivity of the model outcome to the methodology employed.
Read More | Download Report
Performance Indicators for Naval Air Rework Facilities
January 1, 1985
This report describes a proposed system that could be used by senior management personnel to monitor the performance of Naval Air Rework Facilities (NARF's). Quantitative indicators are introduced for gauging performance in eight key subject areas: quantity, quality, timeliness, backlog, cost, productivity, efficiency, and overhead. These indicators are displayed for each major product line by means of control charts that depict historical performance, performance goals, and lower limits of acceptable performance. Actual performance data for the second quarter of FY 1984 are used to illustrate the proposed system.
Read More | Download Report