SELECTION 



493 



Ideally, a job would be a set of activities 

 calling for common aptitudes and knowledge, 

 so that the man who is good at one aspect 

 will be good at all aspects of the job. The 

 activities for any single billet must be so 

 arranged in time and space that one man can 

 perform them all, and the total organization 

 of billets for the ship must cover all duties to 

 be done. An efficient billet design makes 

 use of one man's skill as broadly as possible. 

 It was very inefficient to give the same ad- 

 vanced training in electronics to sonar mat- 

 eriel men, radar technicians, and radio tech- 

 nicians. The recent change, establishing the 

 new rate of Electronic Technician's Mate, 

 makes it possible to train one man to per- 

 form duties three men formerly had to learn. 

 But billets are rarely organized on a psycho- 

 logical basis. In a submarine, the radioman 

 normally becomes a sonarman when the boat 

 submerges. The reason? Because the 

 sound gear is accessible to him, and the radio 

 cannot operate under water. But radio ap- 

 titude may not make a good sonarman. A 

 sonarman must have tactical visualization 

 aptitudes, keen hearing for pitch and for high 

 tones, and other abilities the radioman does 

 not use. Perhaps on some ships a signalman 

 or radarman would get more information out 

 of the sound stack than a radioman, if he 

 were properly trained. Since it is not possi- 

 ble to fill every billet with a superman who 

 can do everything perfectly, it is important 

 to design billets so that the task has psycho- 

 logical unity, calling for similar aptitudes 

 and personal characteristics. 



Selection with Several Tests 



The traditional method of making predic- 

 tions is as follows: The test is sought which 

 predicts job success best, then another test of 

 a different function is sought which, added to 

 the first, gives more exact prediction. This 

 process of adding tests to make an accurate 

 composite prediction is called multiple re- 

 gression . Although this is a well-understood 

 method, it has a serious limitation which 

 under some circumstances leads to unsound 



processing. In ASW, early in the war, this 

 procedure led to a formula in which pitch 

 judgment and mechanical aptitude were av- 

 eraged, to estimate probable success in sonar 

 school. Many good men were sent to sonar 

 school, where they failed; they had been 

 passed when very high mechanical insight 

 counterbalanced their very poor pitch judg- 

 ment. Such men would have succeeded in 

 radar or radio school, but could not make 

 sonar jvidgments. The multiple-regression 

 method assumes that strength in one ability 

 compensates for wealaiess in another; this is 

 often untrue. 



The solution which avoids the assumption 

 of compensation is the multiple cutoff. Men 

 with poor pitch are discarded ; men with poor 

 mechanical comprehension are discarded; 

 further cutoffs are made with other tests 

 until only men without deficiencies remain. 

 The cutoff method has not been studied very 

 thoroughly. It has limitations of many 

 sorts. Thomdike has explained why the 

 Air Force chose to base pilot selection on the 

 multiple-regression method (46, pp. 89-91), 

 but has not considered the many situations 

 where it leads to poor selection. Ruch (40) 

 has found definite evidence for the superi- 

 ority of the cutoff method under some cir- 

 cumstances. A careful study is needed to 

 define the precise conditions under which it 

 is advisable to use multiple cutoffs rather 

 than a composite formula for prediction. 

 Work such as that of Springbett, who de- 

 vised an efficient method for determining 

 multiple cutting scores (43), needs further 

 development. 



Shipboard Classification 



A major practical problem in World War 

 II was shipboard classification. Processing 

 to provide the fleet with excellent men in 

 all rates was carried out in training centers. 

 As a supplement to this system, shipboard 

 strikers were often permitted to try for a rate 

 even when they lacked necessary aptitudes. 

 Probably many men were rated at sea whose 

 skill on the job was inferior. Non-rated 



