PREDICTING TRAINING SUCCESS: NOT MUCH MORE THAN g

The roles of general ability ( g ) and specific abilities ( s 1 … s g ) were investigated in prediction of job‐training‐school grades. Subjects were 78,041 Air Force enlistees in 82 jobs. General ability and specific abilities were defined by scores on the first and subsequent unrotated principal components of the enlistment selection and classification test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Linear models analyses revealed that s 1 … s 9 added little to the prediction afforded by g. It was also determined that a common prediction equation for all jobs was almost as predictive as an equation for each job.