Evaluating the O*NET Occupational Analysis System for Army Competency Development

"The present evaluation focused primarily on the usefulness of the O*NET system for Army occupational analysis for selection and classification purposes. The evaluation focused on the appropriateness of O*NET descriptors that would typically be used in an Army occupation analysis for selection and classification purposes: abilities, skills, generalized work activities (GWAs), and work context. Four civilian and four officer occupations were selected for this research. The objective was to produce data for the military occupations that could be compared to civilian O*NET data. Therefore, it was important to follow processes currently used by O*NET for data collection. In effect, this meant collecting information on occupational tasks, abilities skills, GWAs, and work context from Army Subject Matter Exports (SMEs) and collecting ability and skill ratings using trained analysts. The results showed that Army SMEs as well as other types of analysts could make reliable ratings on the O*NET descriptors. Potential uses for the O*NET descriptors are discussed."--P. i.