Diverse predictors of early attrition in an elite Marine training school

ABSTRACT

Reconnaissance Marine training is deliberately difficult, to assure that graduates have the capabilities required to function successfully in the high-risk military occupational specialty. The majority of training attrition is due to voluntary withdrawal and previous research has identified certain predictive factors such as demographics, mental status, and physical performance. While some characteristics of training attrition have been identified, there is still a lack of understanding related to an individual’s profile that is more apt to complete Recon training. Retrospective survey data was analyzed from 3,438 trainees within the Reconnaissance Training Company. Surveys were related to trainees’ military recruitment history and other military experience, prior life experience, athletic experience, self-identified personality characteristics and motivations, and reasons for voluntary withdrawal if applicable, as well as physical performance metrics. Various demographic factors, self-reported hobbies, motivations, aquatic experience, and physical performance were associated with success in Recon Marine training courses. Subjects who voluntarily withdrew from training most commonly cited mental stress and aquatic rigor as the reason and less commonly cited reasons were physical and family reasons. These results could potentially increase training success, but more research is needed to understand the relationships between the observed trainee characteristics and success in elite warfighter training.

KEYWORDS:

• Military
• Training
• Human Performance
• Success Factors

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Colonel Clarke Lethin USMC (Ret) for his support of this research. We would also acknowledge our team of research assistants (Kelly Bickett, Paul Khairallah, Harrison Bach, Hana Rosenthal, Navyada Koshatwar, Gabriella Pacini, Caitlin Kim, and Harley McKee) for their valuable work transcribing the survey data.

This material is based upon work supported by the US Army Research Laboratory. The authors are fully responsible for the design of the research, analysis of the results, and writing of the abstract. We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Due to the retrospective nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available due to ethical reasons.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Army Research Laboratory [W911NF1920257].