Development of Officer Selection Battery Forms 3 and 4

This report describes the development, standardization, and validation of two parallel forms of a test to be used for assessing young men and women applying to ROTC. Fairly extensive job analysis work established a content basis for initial test item development 1,4000 experimental items in 12 job relevant content areas were prepared and administered to 3,306 college juniors who were enrolled in the Advanced ROTC program. Professors of Military Science completed a Cadet Rating Form on each student covering Officer Potential and six scales relating to dimensions of Officer leadership. The sample was stratified to conform to the 1980 national distribution of SAT scores and to consist of 18 black cadets, 5 other nonwhite cadets, and 10 female cadets. Item analyses were performed using both the Officer Potential rating and the sum of the Officer Dimension ratings as criteria. Separate analyses were also performed for gender and ethnic subgroups. Items that would yield the most valid test with the least gender or ethnic impact were selected for the final forms. For standardization, the tests were administered to college sophomores in military science courses, and the samples were gain stratified to conform to the national distribution of SAT scores and the same gender and ethnic proportions. Results indicated that the tests were essentially equivalent, easily readable, and of high reliability. Separate norm tables were prepared for the two forms because of slight differences at the extremes of the distributions.