An Exploratory Study of the U .S. Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps' Accessions Process

Abstract

The issue of assessing cadet leadership potential is a constant concern of the U.S. Army's leaders and has been since the ratification of the National Defense Act in 1916. According to the U.S. Army Cadet Command, the central headquarters for all ROTC activities, Army ROTC has a total of 273 host programs with more than 1,100 partnership and affiliate schools across the United States and Puerto Rico. ROTC is one of four pathways to earn a commission in the Army and produces approximately 60 percent of the second lieutenants who join the Army. This study explored the U.S. Army ROTC accessions process and the validity of the accessions scoring system. Army ROTC cadets are evaluated through the accessions process; a system designed to determine leadership potential both on campus and during the Leader Development and Assessment Course (LDAC). The scoring results of the accessions process are used to select newly commissioned officers in a component (active duty, Army National Guard or Army Reserve) and to assign an area of specialty or branch. The results of this study indicated that the accessions process is a valid measure of the leadership potential of Army ROTC cadets when comparing cumulative grade point average, leadership scores and physical fitness scores to the final accessions score. This study demonstrated that the component measurements all had a statistical significant relationship with the final accessions score. In particular, leadership scores had the strongest relationship the final accessions score in both the weighted and un-weighted analyses.