Basic combat training Soldiers in A Battery, 1st Battalion, 40th Field Artillery participate in an Army Research Institute study Oct. 18, 2016, by filling out a survey here. About 1,000 BCT Soldiers at Fort Sill participated in the study, which will ...

FORT SILL, Okla. (Oct. 27, 2016) -- With more than 140 Army military occupational specialties to choose from recruits might find it difficult to decide upon one.

Their decisions may be based on what recruiters told them about the job, what they've heard from family or friends, or their own perceptions created from TV, movies and the internet. They may even be influenced by a quick viewing of an Army video about the MOS, i.e., seeing stuff get blown up so choosing to go into field artillery.

Psychologists with the Army Research Institute (ARI) for the Behavioral and Social Sciences at Fort Belvoir, Va., are working to create a tool which will help guide a recruit toward MOSs where they may be most compatible. The idea being that the Soldier will enjoy the work, find it rewarding and advance in it, and stay in the service beyond one enlistment.

Dr. Cristina Kirkendall, ARI research psychologist, and ARI contractor Dr. Christopher Nye, Michigan State University assistant professor and Drasgow Consulting Group consultant, were at Fort Sill, Oct. 17-20, surveying 1,000 basic combat training Soldiers in the 434th Field Artillery Brigade. The BCT Soldiers input will be used as a part in the creation of the Adaptive Vocational Interest Diagnostic or AVID.

"A lot of Soldiers don't have information about a job before they enlist," Kirkendall said. "They pick a job based on either the bonuses or what the recruiter said they should choose or whatever it may be. And, that might just not be the best place for them."

When a Soldier is committing at least a couple years to the Army, it should be a job that they enjoy doing, she said.

"Right now there is a lot of turnover, especially first term," Kirkendall said. "We want them to stay, and we figure if we get them in the right place (MOS), they will stay."

Subsequently, the Army would save a lot of money in recruiting and training.

The two researchers have surveyed 3,000 Soldiers in BCT, advanced individual training and permanent party personnel, from pay grades E-1 through E-6 across the Army, Kirkendall said. They've been to forts Benning, Ga.; Leonard Wood, Mo.; Jackson, S.C.; Riley, Kan.; Drum, N.Y.; and Army posts in Korea.

"We wanted to get a broad range of responses on these survey items to see how well they are represented," she said.

At Fort Sill, trainees filled out anonymous, hard copy Scantron surveys that took about 90 minutes, Nye said. One of the sample questions was, "I would enjoy helping people plan a fitness program." Soldiers responded with a choice of: agree, disagree, strongly agree or strongly disagree. There were no right or wrong answers and respondents were told to be honest and accurate, according to instructions. There were built-in checks in the survey to see if respondents were just penciling in the same response on every question.

"Soldier responses from Fort Sill will be used primarily for initial construct validation," said Kirkendall, "which essentially means that we will test the relationship of our work interest scales with existing work interest scales."

Another assessment being developed is the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System (TAPAS), said Nye. "The TAPAS is a personality measure which gets at some of the non-cognitive characteristics."

TAPAS has been used by the U.S. military during processing of recruits at military entrance processing stations since Sept. 2009, according to the Drasgow website. More than 500,00 recruits have taken 120-item computer adaptive versions of TAPAS measuring 15 personality dimensions.

Other military services have been using surveys to for vocational guidance, Kirkendall said.

The Air Force uses an interest inventory for any potential recruit to look at online, Kirkendall said. The Navy also uses an interest inventory for Sailors who are looking to reclassify into another rate (MOS).

And, similar surveys are used by high school counselors as they advise students on vocations, Nye said.

Implementation of AVID is still three to four years away, Kirkendall said. It will not replace any testing currently used to determine a Soldier's job eligibility, such as the cognitive Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), or the Occupational Physical Assessment Test.

And, the results of a Soldier's AVID will be for their use, and not used by the Army to limit a recruit's options, she said.