EFFECT OF AMBIGUOUS TEST RESULTS ON TROUBLESHOOTING PERFORMANCE

Forty-eight high school boys, used as subjects, were divided into eight groups of six each. Four of the groups were composed of 'medium' electronic aptitude subjects having scores in the 40 to 65 percentile range on the Airman Qualifying Exam - 62. The other groups contained subjects with...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pieper,William J, Folley,John D. , Jr
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
APTITUDE TESTS
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
ELECTRONIC TECHNICIANS
ELECTRONICS
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
FAILURE
Humanities and History
JOB ANALYSIS
MAINTENANCE
MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL
PERFORMANCE(HUMAN)
TRAINING
TROUBLESHOOTING
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Summary:Forty-eight high school boys, used as subjects, were divided into eight groups of six each. Four of the groups were composed of 'medium' electronic aptitude subjects having scores in the 40 to 65 percentile range on the Airman Qualifying Exam - 62. The other groups contained subjects with 'high,' 75 to 99 percentile, electronic aptitude. Each subject received 11 hours of training and practice in isolating malfunctioning components in data-flow diagrams using the half-split strategy. During testing each subject group worked 24 paper and pencil between-stage troubleshooting problems, one set of 6 at each of four levels of ambiguity (0%, 10%, 20%, and 40%). The performance measures used were: (1) isolation time, (2) number of isolation tests, and (3) identification errors. Subject aptitude had the greatest effect on speed (isolation time) and accuracy of identifying the guilty component (identification errors). On the other hand, aptitude had no effect on the application of the troubleshooting strategy since both medium and high aptitude subjects used the same number of tests in solving the problems. Ambiguity of test results affected speed, accuracy, and application of the strategy. The greater the percentage of ambiguous test results, the more time required, the less accuracy attained, and the greater the number of checks used in solving the problems. As expected, the four problem sets had significant effects on speed, accuracy, and the number of tests used to solve the problems. However, there were no significant interactions between this variable and aptitude, ambiguity, or the aptitude by ambiguity interaction. (Author)