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A set of biographical data was collected for a sample of 420 Royal Naval officers in training. Different scoring keys were developed for four training criteria, using England's (1971) Weighted Application Blank technique, and cross‐validated on a further sample of 282 officers. Appropriately weighted biodata predicted one of the training performance criteria almost as well as the composite score of four psychometric tests of aptitude, and as the overall assessment rating of a lengthy assessment centre procedure. Of the two training wastage criteria, biodata succeeded in predicting voluntary withdrawal from training at a low level while neither of the other two predictors did so. Different biographical items predicted voluntary withdrawal and success in professional training. There was no evidence of differential validity for subsamples from different socio‐economic or educational backgrounds.
Drakeley et al. (Wed,) studied this question.