Schooling, occupational motivation, and personality as related to success in paramedical training

Measures of prior school experience, motivation for working in a health care job, and personality were evaluated as potential predictors of success in Navy paramedical training. When, by multiple regression procedures, years of school completed, numbers of suspensions or expulsions from school, occupational motivation, and Comrey personality scale scores were combined with an aptitude measure that is used for guiding recruits into paramedical training, the cross-validity for predicting training completion was significantly increased (P less than 0.001) from 0.40 to 0.50. Practical means for applying these measures to the screening of candidates for paramedical training were developed. Results of the evaluation suggest that guiding people into jobs that they neither prefer nor perceive as congruent with their abilities and interests can significantly reduce the chances for occupational success.