Factor Structure of the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test Form S: Analysis and Comparison with Previous Forms

Abstract

Due to its importance for assignment and classification in the U.S. Air Force, the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) has received a substantial amount of research. Recently, the AFOQT was revised to reduce administrative burden and test-taker fatigue. However, the new version, the AFOQT Form S, was implemented without explicitly examining the latent structure of the exam. The current study examined the factor structure of Form S as well as its measurement equivalence across race- and sex-based groups. Results indicated that a bifactor model with a general intelligence factor and five content-specific factors fit the best. The measurement equivalence of the AFOQT across gender and racial/ethnic groups was also supported.

Notes

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the United States Government, the Department of Defense, or the United States Air Force.

¹Frederick B. Davis told the story to my (Ree) class of graduate students in 1972 of how he was offered a commission or if he did not accept he could take his chances with the draft. He was commissioned in the U.S. Army shortly thereafter and participated in the AAPP first in Santa Anna, California, and then in San Antonio, Texas.

²At the suggestion of a reviewer, we reanalyzed the data with individuals marking more than one race/ethnicity as a fifth group. The results were virtually identical to those reported in Table 5.