Factorial Validity of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), Forms 8, 9 and 10: 1981 Army Applicant Sample

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to examine the factor structure of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), Forms 8, 9, and 10. This standardized multiple cognitive abilities battery is the primary selection and classification instrument used by all military services. It consists of eight power and two speed tests. In this investigation the ASVAB 8/9/10 factor structure was compared with that observed for previous samples and for previous forms of the ASVAB. The similarity of factor structure for racial/ethnic and sex subgroups was examined for the purpose of establishing the possible invariance of ASVAB factorial validity across groups. A factor analysis of a sample of 98,689 male and female Army applicants yielded four orthogonal factors accounting for 93% of the total variance: Verbal Ability, Speeded Performance, Quantitative Ability, and Technical Knowledge. Factor analyses of male, female, white, black, and Hispanic subgroups yielded similar results. These analyses provided evidence of the replicability of ability constructs across diverse samples.

Building a Joint-Service Classification Research Roadmap: Individual Differences Measurement

“…The three most important findings are: (1) the general factor (psychometric g) accounts for approximately 60 percent of the total variance (Kass, Mitchell, Grafton, & Wing, 1983;Welsh, Watson, & Ree, 1990), (2) four factors have been identified and replicated across studies (Kass et al, 1983;, and (3) the four factors have been replicated for males, females, Blacks, Whites, and Hispanic subgroups separately (Kass et al, 1983). The four factors and ASVAB subtests that have substantial loadings are:…”

“…(1) Verbal (WK and PC) (2) Speed (CS and NO) (3) Quantitative (AR and MK) (4) Technical (AS, MC, and EL) GS has loaded on the Verbal factor (Ree, Mullins, Mathews, & Massey, 1982) and has yielded split-loadings on the Verbal and Technical factors (Kass et al, 1983). Otherwise this factor solution is relatively straight forward and is highly replicable.…”

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“…Only minor differences exist between these and the four factor solutions reported by Kass et al (1982) and Ree et al (1981). These four factors can be interpreted as Verbal, Speed, Math, and Technical, as noted in the introduction.…”

“…Previous research (Kass, Mitchell, Grafton, & Wing, 1982;Ree, Mullins, Mathews, & Massey, 1981 ) on the factor structure of ASVAB has demonstrated that the constructs measured by ASVAB can be reasonably described by four factors. With minor variation, these are: Verbal (General Science, Word Knowledge, and Paragraph Comprehension), Speed (Coding Speed and Numerical Operations), Math (Arithmetic Reasoning and Mathematical Knowledge) and Technical (Auto/Shop Information, Mechanical Comprehension, and Electronics Information).…”

“…While the research by Ree et al did not address the issue of population subgroup differences in factor structure, Kass et al (1982) examined subgroup differences, but collapsed across race on one hand and across sex on the other.…”