Career Path Appreciation (CPA) Data Reduction and Analysis

The Career Path Appreciation (CPA) is an assessment interview that theoretically gives insight into conceptual capacity. CPA interviews were conducted with 148 active-duty Army officers in residence at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Each volunteered to be interviewed. The interrater reliability, based on 57 cases scored by two raters, was .81. Considering the quasiclinical nature of the assessment interview, this is highly acceptable. In addition, modest construct validity was demonstrated for the CPA Current Conceptual Capacity scores. War college instructors, who rated a substample on strategic thinking skill as demonstrated in War College seminar groups, tended to rate those who scored higher on the CPA as better thinkers than those who scored lower (r = .57 and .51 on two different thinking skill measures). Examination of individual responses to the PHRASES task by subjects classified into four conceptual capacity levels on the basis of their investigator-rated CPA performances suggested ways to improve some of the PHRASES item sets. Conceptual skills, Stratified systems theory, Assessment, Strategic leadership.