Warrior Cognitive Skills Assessment Battery

"This project will develop a Macrocognitive Assessment Battery (MAB) to enable the Army to determine the readiness of its small unit leaders to handle the challenges created by Objective Force Warrior (OFW). The reliance on information technology in OFWwill increase the cognitive demands on small unit leaders. Therefore, the Army will need tools for assessing the ability of its leaders to function effectively in high-tempo, data overload conditions. Unfortunately, existing cognitive assessment methodsare aimed at too detailed a level. By utilizing the framework of Macrocognition, Klein Associates will be able to design a tool to focus directly on processes such as sensemaking, attention management, uncertainty management, recognitional decisionmaking, and situation assessment, that link directly to the demands of OFW.The Phase I effort will develop a preliminary prototype version of the Macrocognitive Assessment Battery, and will pilot test that version in order to gauge face validity for individual tests and for the MAB as a whole. Once we have achieved thoseobjectives, we will be ready to: move into Phase II, developing a more formalized version of the MAB; evaluate reliability and validity; link the MAB to training in Macrocognitive skills that will be essential for OFW effectiveness. The Macrocognitive Assessment Battery should prove invaluable in the Army, the DoD in general, and in paramilitary organizations such as firefightin