Discriminating between Graduates and Failure in the USAF Medical Laboratory Specialist School: An Explorative Approach.

The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of success in the USAF Medical Service Specialist school and to explore those characteristics that best differentiate Failures and Graduates. Composite scores from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery ASVAB Form 6 and 7, a course-developed mathematics pretest score, a general intelligence score, and student demographics were used as predictors of the dicotomous criterion for 784 enlisted personnel entered into this occupational speciality. Group mean differences, correlation analysis, and the development of a linear discriminant function LDF were accomplished to determine those variables that best differentiated the two groups. Results of these analyses indicate that the most powerful predictor of graduation and discrimination between Graduates and Failures was the course-developed mathematics pretest. General intelligence, electrical aptitude, and age appear to offer additional predictive information. Distributions of the standardized discriminant scores in reduced-space appear to indicate a significant deviation from a normal distribution for the Failure population based on the variables studied.