Screening for Service: Aptitude and Education Criteria for Military Entry

Abstract

In 1980, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Military Services, in cooperation with the Department of Labor, sponsored a large-scale research project to assess the vocational aptitudes of American youth. A national probability sample of approximately 12,000 young men and women, selected from participants in the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) of Youth Labor Force Behavior, was given the military’s enlistment and job placement test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). This research endeavor, known as the “Profile of American Youth,” marked the first time a military qualification test, or any vocational aptitude test, had been given to a nationally representative sample. The Profile Study thus offered a rare opportunity to evaluate the cross-sectional character of military enlistees based on a national measure of vocational test performance. Screening for Service describes the results of a research effort that evolved from the Profile Study. Since the Profile Study sample was nationally representative, and it incorporated the scores of contemporary youth on a version of the ASVAB parallel to that currently used to screen military applicants, it was possible to estimate the numbers and proportions of American youth expected to qualify for military enlistment under existing standards. The military “participation rates” of American youth could also be calculated using enlistment eligibility rates of the general population in combination with information on enlistment behavior.