Testing in the United States Military: The Examination of Colorblindness in the Armed Forces Qualification Test
Open AccessThe military has time and time again expressed their desire to promote diversity and inclusion within their organization. Yet, previous studies have indicated the racial struggles minoritized military servicemembers encounter across various facets of their experiences in the military. In this thesis, I examine the use of the Armed Forces Qualification Exam (AFQT) between the Army and the Air Force, in which all recruits must meet the minimum score to join the military. The exam tests individuals on word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, arithmetic reasoning, and mathematics knowledge. Drawing on the theory of colorblindness, the race-neutral approach of the military’s standards of merit may have limited many racial/ethnic recruits from enlisting. Hence, the dearth representation can have adverse effects on demographic diversity and race relations in the U.S. military. In this study, I compare the accession scores of recruits between the Air Force and the Army and study whether and how each branch makes use of AFQT scores for accession. Controlling for most relevant factors including gender, educational attainment, age, citizenship status, and accession year, this study examine racial and ethnic differences in AFQT scores among those who join the Army or the Air Force. Although colorblindness tendencies may be observed in both the Army and Air Force, my estimates indicate that the AFQT favors White, male applicants. Thus, the military approaching the AFQT from a race-neutral perspective may inhibit recruits of all intersectionality from enlisting.
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