An Army cohort was examined from entry through completion of their first term to explore causes, correlates, and strategies to manage attrition.

Retention of enlisted members is among the Army's formidable personnel challenges. First term attrition is of particular concern. To better understand the causes and identify strategies to manage first-term attrition, the United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI) initiated the "First Term Soldier Attrition and Management Research Project." Under this effort, numerous surveys were administered to a substantial proportion of the FY99 enlistment cohort, and longitudinal models explaining attrition were developed. Given changes in the recruiting environment since 1999, questions arose about the relevance of results from the FY99 cohort for application with current cohorts. The current study represents a limited replication of the First Term Project using FY03 accessions. The results presented in this report suggest that the FY03 and FY99 cohorts are quite similar. Though some differences were found, they did little to diminish the predictive validity and utility of variables and models identified as salient predictors of BCT attrition in the FY99 longitudinal study. In light of these findings, recommendations made based on the FY99 cohort's longitudinal study with regard to how the Army can use these results to manage BCT attrition still hold.

"This report summarizes attrition-related findings for Soldiers who participated in three Select21 reception battalion data collections: the pilot test (September-November 2003), faking research (January-February 2004), and field test (August-September 2004). The report provides estimates of the criterion-related validity of early for pre-concurrent validation versions of the Select21 predictor measures for predicting first-term attrition. As such, the results provided in this report speak to the potential of the measures for selecting future Soldiers who are likely to complete their service obligations"--P. i.