Research for Recruit Quality

Syndicate content
Recruiting Budgets, Recruit Quality, and Enlisted Performance
February 1, 2008
We examined the impact of changing recruit quality and recruiting resources on the first term performance of Navy sailors. We identified two key performance measures: completion of enlistment and promotion rates. We found that education, Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores, and time in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) affected these performance outcomes. We constructed scenarios to examine how changing these factors would affect first term performance, based on the Navy’s recent history on recruit quality and DEP policy. We found that changing recruit quality had a small impact on completion rates, but a much larger effect on job performance, as measured by promotion rates. When we examined DEP policy, we found that changes in DEP time produced larger changes in first term performance than recruit quality. We compared three alternatives for absorbing a shortfall in recruiting resources: decreasing the size of the DEP, lowering AFQT standards, and enlisting more non-graduates with high AFQT scores. We found that recruiting more high AFQT non-graduates would have the smallest long-term impact on performance.
Read More
Does Education Reform Improve Job Performance?
August 1, 2003
The late 1980’s and 1990’s were a period of intensive reform within American public education. However, in terms of verified student outcomes, there is little evidence that most of these reforms had the desired impact. Examining military personnel data, which is a highly detailed source of information on recent high school graduate’s performance, we find that the quality of Navy recruits improved during the 1990’s. However, we don’t find evidence that this improvement was the result of school reform. Specifically, recruits from states that enacted reform do no better on our performance measures than recruits from non-reform states, even after controlling for baseline performance. In some cases, recruits from “reform” states perform at lower levels than those from non-reform states. Reforms seem to affect non-degree graduates differently (often more negatively) than they affect high school graduates. The increase in quality of Navy recruits appears to be due to selective recruiting and/or a general increase in achievement, rather than to any specific school reform(s).
Read More | Download Report