Development of the General Work Inventory

The services have a sophisticated task-based job analysis system which provides invaluable training and job descriptive Information within occupational areas. Increasingly, however, requests are made for the comparison of related work functions or variables (e.g., skills) across occupational areas. A practical quantitative measure for comparing work activities in different career fields would facilitate broad description, comparison, and classification of such occupational information. This paper outlines a study to develop a structured questionnaire consisting of work activity/condition descriptors applicable to the entire occupational spectrum. In addition to outlining the potential applications of such a system, we will describe plans to rate a sample of enlisted Air Force jobs, assess instrument reliability and validity, and group jobs based on their work dimension profiles..