Four stages in the evolution of military Enlistment testing

and effective as the which the has more complex and demanding. This progression is particularly evident in the history of psychological testing for enlisted selection and classification in the United States military. This chapter focuses on how this history has gone through three progressive stages: 1) screening for basic cognitive ability in a single service, 2) matching individual cognitive capabilities to job requirements separately for each service, and 3) developing a single cognitive battery to enable person-job matching for all services, and how it is currently embarking on a fourth stage: developing the capacity to select and classify applicants using a combination of cognitive and noncognitive measures. This last phase, while continuing the evolution, is revolutionary in terms of both character and pace (Rumsey, in press). These advancements have been facilitated by a number of technical advances, including the development and administration of group ability tests, the development of computer adaptive tests, the development of a model of job performance, and the development of fake-resistant personality tests.