Introduction to the Special Issue on Conceptualizing and Predicting Performance of Military Officers

1-4338-1998-8

Abstract

Increased complexity and uncertainty in the operating environment for Army officers have highlighted the need to ensure that current selection and training systems are well aligned with evolving job requirements for these officers. This article introduces a special issue exploring recent efforts to meet this challenge. It addresses the need to fully understand the major components of an officer’s job, a topic more fully explored in two articles in this issue. It discusses research to more fully measure noncognitive attributes that contribute to officer performance than historical screening methods have attempted. Three articles in this issue demonstrate how this research has proceeded in three precommissioning contexts: Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), Officer Candidate School (OCS), and the United States Military Academy (USMA). Finally, this article discusses considerations associated with implementing new selection and training tools, considerations particularly relevant to two of the articles that address implementation in two of these precommissioning contexts.

• Officer
• selection
• training
• noncognitive
• implementation