Development of a Peer Comparison Procedure for the U.S. Army Aviation Officer Advanced Course

In response to a request from the School Secretary, U.S. Army Aviation Center, Fort Rucker, Alabama, a peer comparison (PC) procedure was developed to select Aviation Officer Advanced Course (AVNOAC) honor graduates on the basis of a whole person concept. Under this concept, students would be evaluated on and honored for both their academic performance and for other attributes important in the development of an Army aviation officer. The PC procedure is a combination of the peer nomination and peer ranking methods and the psycho-physical scaling technique of paired comparisons. Section members in each AVNOAC class nominate and rank order five of their peers on their potential as aviation officers. They then compare each pair of nominees on each of five military qualities identified by senior aviation officers as important and likely to be observed in the course. The PC procedure was administered twice in each of two AVNOAC classes (N = 90 and 103). The results indicate that the procedure is easy to use, has high internal consistency and temporal stability, and produces a consensus on which students have the highest potential. Keywords: Peer nomination; Paired comparisons; Military qualities; Peer ranking; Army aviation officer; Personnel selection.