The Navy Fitrep: The Development and Testing of a Performance Evaluation Portotype

Abstract

The U.S. Navy currently faces the challenge of redesigning the Navy performance evaluation tool to best assess sailors for promotion eligibility. Navy Personnel Command has partnered with a research team at Naval Postgraduate School to create a performance evaluation tool that utilizes a behavior-based performance method and reflects the organizational goals of the Navy. This thesis integrates academic literature to support the development of a performance evaluation prototype. It examines the prototype’s ability across numerous demographics to assess a sailor’s current performance, their potential performance at the next paygrade, and their performance compared to their peers, for the purpose of promotion. The prototype was fielded by employing two recruitment methods for identifying and recruiting participants: snowballing and a social media campaign. This thesis investigates the utilization of behaviorally anchored rating scales for the purpose of performance evaluation, the demographic make-up of our sample, and the distributions of ratings within the three areas of assessment: performance, potential, and peer comparison. Based on the data, I recommend future research be conducted to evaluate the efficacy of performance appraisal ratings feeding directly into RSCA, in counteracting rater subjectivity and complacency. Subsequent testing should then be fielded to assess rater subjectivity and potential adverse impacts on the efficacy of the prototype.