Establishing Gender-Neutral Physical Standards for Ground Combat Occupations: Volume 1. A Review of Best-Practice Methods

Abstract

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Establishing Gender-Neutral Physical Standards for Ground Combat Occupations: Volume 2. A Review of the Military Services' Methods

“…This evidence can be developed following Stages 1 through 3 of the process shown in Figure 2.1. As discussed in Hardison, Hosek, and Bird (2018), Stage 4 of the process is not necessary to support topdown selection, but it might be desirable to establish minimum scores for these jobs.…”

“…This recommended process is based on the research literature and best practice in other organizations with physically demanding jobs, such as police and firefighters (Hardison, Hosek, and Bird, 2018). The recommended approach involves six stages.…”

“…DoD can expect similar scrutiny as it embarks on the process of developing gender-neutral physical standards-and, for this reason, wishes to employ appropriate methods in this endeavor. To assist the military services in developing occupation-specific standards relevant to performance, we provided an overview of the process for developing those standards described in Volume 1 of this work based on the research literature and best practice (Hardison, Hosek, and Bird, 2018). We grouped the process into six stages to reflect that it necessarily involves attending carefully to each stage in the process.…”

“…We used the stages and the best-practice methods described in Chapter Two (and more fully in Hardison, Hosek, and Bird, 2018) as a guide for evaluating the methodologies being used by the military services to set gender-neutral standards-which are described in the chapters to follow. Since the services were still in the process of developing standards when our research ended, this evaluation focuses on the first three stages summarized in Figure 3.1 and, to a limited extent, the fourth stage.…”

“…The first objective was to describe best-practice methodologies for establishing gender-neutral standards for physically demanding jobs, tailored to address the needs of the military. Volume 1 of this report documents our work directed toward this objective (Hardison, Hosek, and Bird, 2018). The second objective of the study was to review and evaluate methodologies being used by the military services to set gender-neutral standards.…”