Propensity to serve and motivation to enlist among American combat soldiers

Armed Forces and Society

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 353-366

  Woodruff, Todd ^a,c   Kelty, Ryan ^a   Segal, David R ^b,d  

^a UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

^c U S ARMY   (United States)

^d United States Military Academy ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

Enlistment; Motivation; Propensity; Service

Indexed keywords

EID: 33645663688     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X05283040     Document Type: Review

References (57)

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2. and B. R. Orvis, M. T. Garhart, and A. K. Ludwig, Validity and Usefulness of Enlistment Intention Information (Santa Monica. CA: RAND, 1992, R-3775-FMP).
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4. R. D. Nord, E. J. Schmitz, and T. A. Weiland, Propensity and the Enlistment Decision (Research Report 723. U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Arlington, VA. 1986).
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6. Orvis, Garhart, and Ludwig, Validity and Usefulness.
7. Bachman et al., "Who Chooses Military Service?"
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12. and Orvis, Sastry, and McDonald, "Military Recruiting Outlook."
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26. P. Sackett and A. Mavor, eds., Attitudes, Aptitudes, and Aspirations of American Youth: Implications for Military Recruitment (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2003), 202-12. We recognize that the National Research Council (NRC) study presents a more detailed description of enlistment and propensity. In this article, we focus on the elements from the NRC study common to the traditional and highly referenced institutional and occupational model developed by Moskos.
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38. Moskos, "From Institution to Occupation."
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40. Moskos, "From Institution to Occupation."
41. Moskos, "From Institution to Occupation." Ibid.:
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46. See D. R. Segal and M. W. Segal, "America's Military Population," Population Bulletin 5. no. 94 (2004): 18-20.
47. Most studies on propensity have collected data from high school students prior to enlisting for military service. This study uses data collected after soldiers have completed basic training and have been stationed with their active-duty units. While this measure raises issues of memory and maturation, these concerns are mitigated by two factors. First, the sample used in this study consists entirely of first-term soldiers, placing them relatively close to the time that they are being asked to recall. Second, enlisting in the military is assumed to be a watershed decision - one that people put a good deal of thought into and should tend to remember.
48. The army is increasingly recruiting high school graduates as opposed to high school seniors. This may have an effect on the number of soldiers reporting "no plans for military service" since those with high propensity may be more likely to enlist immediately following graduation. Given the close correspondence of our propensity data with that collected prior to the army's recruitment focus on high school graduates, we feel confident that our data represent a good estimate of the enlistment propensity of America's youth.
49. Orvis, Garhart, and Ludwig, Validity and Usefulness. Research conducted by R. Kelty and D. R. Segal (forthcoming) found similar propensity numbers to those presented in this study. In studies of an army combat aviation squadron (n = 191) and a navy ship in the Pacific fleet (n = 100), service members with low propensity constituted 77 percent and 63 percent of the samples, respectively.
50. Our retrospective method of measuring enlistment motivations is consistent with that used by Tarver, Miller, and Ginexi, Qualitative Evaluation.
51. Data were collected less than a year after September 11, 2001. Given the proximity in dates, most of the soldiers in this sample enlisted prior to the terrorist attacks. It may be that in the wake of these terrorist attacks, soldiers' motivations for enlistment have shifted. If such a shift has occurred, it is predicted to be in the direction of increased institutional motivations for enlistment, which would make our current findings on the relative importance of institutional motivations conservative. It is not clear how educational benefits might be affected by the events of September 11. Additional research is necessary to determine whether the current findings are consistent with those of soldiers enlisting post-September 11, 2001.
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