PREDICTING JOB-PERFORMANCE - NOT MUCH MORE THAN G

The roles of general cognitive ability (g) and specific abilities or knowledge (s) were investigated as predictors of work sample job performance criteria in 7 jobs for U.S. Air Force enlistees. Both g and s (the interaction of general ability and experience) were defined by scores on the first and subsequent principal components of the enlistment selection and classification test (the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). Multiple regression analyses, when corrected for range restriction, revealed that g was the best predictor of all criteria and that s added a statistically significant but practically small amount to predictive efficiency. These results are consistent with those of previous studies, most notably Army Project A (J. J. McHenry, L. M. Hough, J. L. Toquam, M. A. Hanson, & S. Ashworth, 1990). The study also extends the findings to other jobs and uses traditionally more acceptable estimates of g, application of effective sample size in cross-validation estimation, and new performance criteria.