Defining Digital Proficiency Measurement Targets for U.S. Army Units

John S. Barnett

Jan 2001 · U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

About this ebook

The U.S. Army is exploring the advantages of networked computer systems to enhance battlefield situation awareness and command and control, a program known as digitization. The long-term goal of the present effort is to develop measures of the skills needed to exploit the advantages of digitization. The initial challenge was to identify candidate digital skills, since there was no listing of digital skills available to use as a starting point. This report focuses on the approach used to identify candidate digital skills. First, data from the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) were analyzed to identify long- term, high-profile problems likely to be addressed by the effective use of digital systems. Next, digital procedures that units might employ to address these problems, and the cognitive capabilities soldiers would need to implement these solutions, were described. Through this process, twenty-two candidate skills were identified which could be used to identify measures of skill performance. The findings of this report will be used to help define performance standards and develop after action review aids.