The Comparison Of The Personality Testing Results Before And After Entering The Army

A major shift has been taken place in the military ideology with the revolution inmilitary affairs, and soldier quality has been a key factor for war. Psychological qualitybecomes more and more important in the course of soldier selection. It is a milestone sincePsychological Screen System of Chinese Recruitment (CRPSS) has been implemented forsoldier mental selection in2006. It is a useful tool for preventing those who sufferpsychosis and dysnoesia entering the army. The number of mental patients is significantdecrease since then. However, there are still exists many unqualified soldiers in recentyears. Therefore, it is the most urgent thing for reexamination of the mental health inrecruits to ensure the quality of the troops.The study of how to implement the reexamination has been conduct for many years,the military re-examination standard has still not been standardized in the army. Recruitsalways need to evaluate the mental health after entering camps, however, the tool forevaluating are general psychometric tools such as Symptom Check List-90(SCL-90). Such testing is not a specific screening for recruits. This problem can be solved throughdeveloping an appropriate reexamination standard.The aim of this study is comparing the differences of personality test in CSPQbetween different environments and exploring the factors that affect those differenceswhich can help to keep abreast of the characteristics and laws of psychological changes inrecruits, providing scientific theoretical basis for the new enlisted personnel screening andhelp to intervene psychological problems. Furthermore, the results of this study canprovide data which support to develop standards for psychological reexamination afterjoining the army.Throughout this study, CSPQ was administered to recruits under different testingconditions. The study can be divided into three parts. Firstly, methods of investigation anddocument analysis were adopted to study the current situation and the effect of CSPQ ofthe military reexamination of personality test. Secondly, different psychological characterof new soldier and recruits under different conditions was explored.2432soldiers weresampled by stratified random sampling method. While cluster random sampling methodwas adopted to select2300recruits. The psychological character of recruit and newsoldiers in different conditions was studied. Thirdly, the different of psychologicalcharacteristics between recruits and new soldiers were compared. At last, the follow-upstudy was conducted to confirm the results of in the third part of this study. One of thetests was conducted in enrollment department; the other was conducted on the4weeksafter they entered the army.The main results of this study are as follows:1. The SCL-90is an important tool for the military reexamination of personality test,which was adopted by64%of this kind of test. However, when CSPQ was adopted, theaverage ratio of elimination was0.3%, and showed steady test-retest reliability.2. The results of recruits’ CSPQ before entering the army as followed: Scores of Net,Set, Dit, Dev, Imp and Ant were significant different between different level of education(p<0.01). Significant differences in Set factor could be observed in the different district level (p<0.01). No significant differences could be found in the different nationality level(p>0.05).3. The results of recruits’ CSPQ after entering the military as followed: Significantdifferences in Net, Set, Dit, Dev, Imp and Ant factors could be observed in the differenteducated groups (p<0.01). Significant differences in Net and Set factors could be observedin the different district groups (p<0.01). No significant differences in the differentnationality level (p>0.05).4. The scores of Net and Set factors tested in the second personality test was higherthan the former, whereas the scores of Dit, Dev, Imp and Ant factors tested in the latter testwere lower than the former. Significant differences could be observed between the firstand second test (p<0.01). There were no interactions in the environment, education,nationality level (p>0.05).5. The scores of Net and Set factors tested in the second personality test weresignificantly higher than the former ((p<0.01), whereas the scores of Dit and Ant factorstested in the latter test were significantly lower than the former (p<0.05) in the tracingstudy for384recruits. The scores of Dev and Ant factors tested in the second personalitytest were lower than former, however, they had no significant differences(p>0.05). Therewere no interactions between the environment and education level. The correlationcoefficients were between0.66-0.80(p<0.01).Conclusions:1. The military reexamination of personality test was very important, and there wereno unified test for it. CSPQ could be a good choice and had reliability results.2. Mental health of high school graduates was better than those who were junior highschool graduates. District and nationality factors had little influence for the mental healthof recruits.3. Mental health of recruit could be affect by the condition of environment, there isno interaction among environment and education, district, nationality factors.4. The standards of military reexamination in personality test should be draw up based on different education levels and environments which would influence the result.When we established test criterion to reexamination standards by CSPQ, the factors thatwere easily influenced by environments need be considered.