Image credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images
April 05, 2023
It’s Time for the Military to Rethink Entrance Examinations
Since 1968, the military has used the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, to assess all incoming recruits. This single test predicts academic skills and determines what military occupational specialty, or MOS, the recruit is qualified to perform in their service.
However, these evaluations are subject to bias, such a race or income inequality, and don’t accurately measure a recruit’s aptitude to perform a job. In short, they focus on mathematical and verbal skills that aren’t indicative of actual intelligence or the ability to learn. By including a series of practical, task-based evaluations and redesigning the academic exam to test ability to perform a skill and not simply academic knowledge, the ASVAB can become a better assessment of a recruit’s aptitude — and potentially their career success.
The military needs to find better methods to match an individual’s abilities to a job in order to become a more effective fighting force.
It is time to replace the ASVAB with a new method of assessing aptitude and ability to learn a trade.
The ASVAB is a mandatory 3-hour standardized test designed to assess strengths and weaknesses in verbal, math, science, and spatial reasoning domains for all recruits entering the military, regardless of service.
Read the full article from Military Times.
More from CNAS
-
Sharper: Military Recruitment
With the 50th anniversary of the United States’ All-Volunteer Force this summer, and the current recruiting crisis potentially impacting force readiness, military personnel po...
By Anna Pederson, Ayla McBreen & Charles Horn
-
One Kansas City Veteran Said 20 Years Later She Still Doesn't Understand the War in Iraq
Kyleanne Hunter, Ph.D., a former major in the United States Marine Corps, served from 2000-2013 and deployed to Iraq five times, joins Up to Date to discuss the legacy of the ...
By Dr. Kyleanne Hunter
-
America and the Taliban: Part Three
Part Three of “America and the Taliban” investigates how negotiations between the Trump administration and the Taliban unfolded, how the Taliban seized territory in Afghanista...
By Dr. Jason Dempsey
-
Uncle Sam Really Wants You
The US military faces its worst recruiting crisis since the draft ended in 1973. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth and Kate Kuzminski join to discuss. Listen to the ful...
By Katherine L. Kuzminski