Coyne Joseph T, Dollinger Sabrina, Brown Noelle, Foroughi Cyrus, Sibley Ciara, Phillips Henry
Information Technology Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA.
Operational Psychology, Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, Pensacola, Florida, USA.
Mil Psychol. 2021 Oct 28;34(1):33-46. doi: 10.1080/08995605.2021.1965786. eCollection 2022.
Spatial ability has long been considered an important attribute when identifying military aviators. This paper examines the Direction Orientation Task (DOT), which is currently used by the US military to assess spatial ability in aviation applicants. Several limitations of the test, such as a limited number of trials and the availability of practice trials online, make it subject to potential ceiling effects. The paper presents historical data of all Naval Aviator applicants over a six-year time period and revealed that 22% of applicants answered 90% or more of the questions correctly. Furthermore, test performance has significantly increased in the years since the test was first administered and there is evidence that DOT is no longer contributing incremental validity. A follow-up empirical study looked at DOT performance and strategy in a group of military student aviators and student air traffic controllers. The results of the empirical investigation reveal that the use of an analytic strategy was associated with higher performance on the DOT, whereas the use of a spatial strategy was not associated with performance. Taken together, the improved performance data over time and the data on strategy use suggest the test's ability to measure spatial ability may be diminishing, ultimately reducing its construct and incremental validity. This is problematic and should be addressed, since the DOT is the only measure of spatial ability used by the Navy to assess aviation applicants.
长期以来，空间能力一直被视为选拔军事飞行员的一项重要特质。本文对定向任务（DOT）进行了研究，该任务目前被美国军方用于评估航空申请者的空间能力。该测试存在一些局限性，比如试验次数有限以及在线练习试验的可用性，这使其容易受到潜在的天花板效应影响。本文展示了六年时间里所有海军飞行员申请者的历史数据，结果显示22%的申请者正确回答了90%或更多的问题。此外，自该测试首次实施以来，测试成绩在这些年里显著提高，并且有证据表明DOT不再具有递增效度。一项后续实证研究考察了一群军事飞行学员和空中交通管制学员在DOT上的表现及策略。实证调查结果显示，使用分析策略与在DOT上的较高表现相关，而使用空间策略与表现无关。综合来看，随着时间推移成绩的提高以及策略使用的数据表明，该测试测量空间能力的能力可能正在下降，最终降低其结构效度和递增效度。这是个问题，应该予以解决，因为DOT是海军用于评估航空申请者空间能力的唯一指标。
