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Developing a Physical Performance Test Battery for Screening Chicago Fire Fighter Applicants

The criteria and methodology employed in the selection process for fire fighter and law enforcement personnel have become of increasing concern to municipal, state and federal agencies as selective criteria (e.g., height-weight requirements, minority hiring practices) and the types of evaluative instruments utilized have been challenged in the courts. Within this climate of challenge and faced with the expiration of a fire fighter eligibility list, the Chicago Civil Service Commission (CCSC) made a major commitment to undertake a research project designed to develop a unique approach to selection of applicants to the Chicago Fire Department. The CCSC decided to study the potential value of a screening process that would combine a reading comprehension test and a physical performance test battery. This decision raised the issue of availability of existing instruments and the suitability of those tests that could be identified. Perusal of available literature dealing with physical performance test batteries for fire fighters yielded limited information and documented the lack of available evidence for test validity. As a result, the CCSC, in consultation with the University of Illinois Physical Fitness Research Laboratory, initiated a cooperative, investigative effort to develop a physical performance test battery designed for the selection of Chicago fire fighters. The first procedural step in the test development process was the conduct of an occupational task analysis, which surveyed, rated, and analyzed 81 tasks performed by the Chicago fire fighter. Although a majority of the duties rated low in complexity and physical in nature, the findings of the task analysis did not negate the importance and necessity for ability to learn and reason. Rather, however, the task analysis findings substantiated the fact that the most relevant screening process appropriate for fire fighter applicants should include provision for assessment of capabilities to perform the required physical tasks. The question of test validity was initially confronted during the early stage of the developmental process, and it was determined by the project investigators that no variable (s) existed that could serve without question as a criterion for the estimation of criterion-related validity. Consequently, the test battery is based primarily upon construct validity. In construct validity "the user wishes to infer the degree to which the