A comparison of two U.S. Air Force pilot aptitude tests.
BACKGROUND
The Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) and Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB) were administered to 2233 U.S. Air Force pilot candidates to investigate the common sources of variance in those batteries. The AFOQT was operationally administered as part of the officer commissioning and aircrew selection testing requirement. The MAB is a clinical test battery and was administered to provide an intellectual baseline to assist clinicians when it becomes necessary to evaluate pilots with cognitive referral questions.


RESULTS
A joint factor analysis of the AFOQT and MAB revealed that each battery had a hierarchical structure. The higher-order factor in the AFOQT previously had been identified as general cognitive ability (g). The intercorrelation between the higher-order factors from the batteries was 0.981, indicating that both measured g. Although both batteries measured g and included verbal, spatial, and perceptual speed tests, the AFOQT also included tests of aviation knowledge not found in the MAB.


CONCLUSIONS
Additional studies are required to evaluate the utility of the AFOQT for clinical assessment and the MAB for officer and aircrew selection.
Air Force Research Laboratory, Brooks Air Force Base, TX 78235-5352, USA.
T R
TR
Carretta
P D
PD
Retzlaff
J D
JD
Callister
R E
RE
King
D000328:Adult; D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001077:Aptitude Tests / Q000592:standards*; D003071:Cognition; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States