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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#521

Post by what »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #395
snailmailstare wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we step away from the traffic controllers nonsense for a moment, the actual problem sounded like a military pilot to me. It's my understanding that people who have a family line of pilots go into that funnel knowing a specific nepotism related result occurs such that when it comes time to become a commercial pilot you are probably from such a family. I have no idea if helicopter pilots work the same way or are sta…

Robust systems are designed to avoid single points of failure. Humans are fallible. So, for example, both the pilot and the air traffic controller are intended to be paying attention so that if one of them makes a mistake the other can pick it up. If the pilot is making an error, the air traffic controller gets on the radio to tell them they're getting too close to another aircraft, in time for them to course correct…

> If the pilot is making an error, the air traffic controller gets on the radio to tell them they're getting too close to another aircraft, in time for them to course correct.

They did.

Pretty sure military aircraft just don’t have to listen to them.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#522

Post by kalensh »

Devilspawn6666 wrote: post #437
kalensh wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They still had to pass the performance test. It was just no longer the first step in the process. I want to be clear, that doesn't mean the questionnaire was a good thing. It just means that the questionnaire did not lower the bar. Instead it reduced the applicant pool in a sudden and unfair manner, which is it's own issue.

No, read the article again. They didn't need to pass the same test to the same degree - the criteria was also changed to have "qualified" and "well qualified".

It's worth nothing that this change happened before the questionnaire was instituted. (The paper referenced in the article was from 2006, I haven't dug enough to find a date for when this change was made, but the narrative in the article also establishes this act as happening in the '00s.) Additionally, from the Conclusions:

"Reweighting was based on data collected from incumbent ATCSs who took AT-SAT on a research basis; some of these employees achieved overall scores less than 70 (that was one of the reasons for the reweighting effort – a belief that incumbent employees should be able to pass the entry-level selection test)."

I don't think this proves that the update to the test was good or bad in overall competency, but I do think it's worth investigating if the test should be updated when existing employees are unable to pass.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#523

Post by clutchdude »

stackskipton wrote: post #274
clutchdude wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID would likely have a bigger hand in the current issues than mistakes from 10-15 years ago though. I found it somewhat puzzling we discuss ATC staffing and don't mention it: https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2024-0... > When training at the academy resumed in July 2020, after the four-month shutdown, class sizes were cut in half to meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social d…

Yep, COVID didn't help either. However, I'll note that hiring != actual ATC controllers because drop/fail rate which for some insane reason is so hard to find.

Here ya go:

Academy attrition on page 38.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf...

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#524

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #506
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-linear doesn't mean "still monotonic". My experience has been that beyond a certain threshold on a given test, job performance is essentially uncorrelated with test performance. As for the article, it's not given me particular solid vibes, a feeling not helped by some of the comments here (both pro and con).

> Non-linear doesn't mean "still monotonic". Satisfying the first assumption means "still monotonic". Also, if you had a better test then you'd use it, but at some point you have 10 candidates and 5 slots and have to use something to choose, so you use the closest approximation available until you can come up with a better one.

> Satisfying the first assumption means "still monotonic".

Sorry, but I just don't agree. There are "qualifying tests" for jobs that I've done that just do not have any sort of monotonic relationship with job performance. I'm a firefighter (volunteer) - to become operational you need to be certified as either FF I or FF II, but neither of those provide anything more than a "yes, this person can learn the basic stuff required to do this". The question of how good a firefighter someone will be is almost orthogonal to their performance on the certification exams. Someone who gets 95% on their IFSAC FF II exam is in no way predicted to be a better firefighter than someone who got 78%.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#525

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

varloid wrote: post #508
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not an answer to that specific question. Performance on the AT-SAT is not job performance. If you have a qualification test that feels useful but also turns out to be highly non-predictive of job performance (as, for example, most college entrance exams turn out to be for college performance), you could change the qualification threshold for the test without any particular expectation of losing job perform…

> Performance on the AT-SAT is not job performance. No, but it was the best predictor of job performance and academy pass rate there was. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA566825.pdf https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/data_research/resear... (page 41) There are a fixed number of seats at the ATC academy in OKC, so it's critical to get the highest quality applicants possible to ensure that the pass rate is as hig…

That is NOT what the first study you've cited says at all:

> "The empirically-keyed, response-option scored biodata scale demonstrated incremental validity over the computerized aptitude test battery in predicting scores representing the core technical skills of en route controllers."

I.e the aptitude test battery is WORSE than the biodata scale.

The second citation you offered merely notes that the AT-SAT battery is a better predictor than the older OPM battery, not that is the best.

I'd also say at a higher level that both of those papers absolutely reek of non-reproduceability and low N problems that plague social and psychological research. I'm not saying they're wrong. They are just not obviously definitive.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#526

Post by matthew_stone »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #354
gadders wrote: post #179

This is so depressing. This is the sort of DEI effort that gives the rest a bad name. It should never, ever be about hard quotas. It absolutely should be about using some contextual information (factoring the person's school environment in) and challenging assumptions about stereotypes so that you are not deciding who is best on assumptions but on evidence.

"This is the sort of DEI effort that gives the rest a bad name." I'd be interested to read about a DEI effort that gives the rest a good name.

Require diversity in the interview pool, not when making hiring decisions.

e.g. in a male majority profession, for every two male applicants selected to interview, select at least one female applicant. But once the candidate pool is established, pick the best available candidate for the job.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#527

Post by dgfitz »

robocat wrote: post #333
reginald78 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably read the same thing, the most galling to me wasn't the failure rate it was that once you've failed you can never reapply.

For some jobs, your aptitude should matter. If a test has some discriminating power between people with aptitude and those without aptitude, then perhaps failing that test should really matter. For ATC staff perhaps OCD-adjacent traits are good and ADD-adjacent traits are bad. Maybe you don't want someone with epilepsy in ATC even though that's unfair. Maybe we all want to be Olympic athletes and a few work hard to b…

US lawyers get multiple attempts to take the bar exam, as an example. Should they?

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#528

Post by rdtsc »

macrocosmos wrote: post #376
rdtsc wrote: post #298

> The FAA investigated, clearing the NBCFAE and Snow of doing anything wrong in an internal investigation Ah yes, we carefully investigated ourselves and we have not found anything wrong. Thank you for your concern. > Our organization, he said, “wasn’t for Caucasians, it wasn’t for, you know, the white male, it wasn’t for an alien on Mars,” and he confirmed that he provided information “to minimize the competition.”…

You’re upset that reality aligns with the rhetoric? Why not just accept that maybe there is something to the rhetoric?

> Why not just accept that maybe there is something to the rhetoric?

Yeah, fair enough

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#529

Post by macrocosmos »

I saw this posted on the aviation subreddit and after gaining a few dozen comments, it seems to have been deleted. Strange times since it is seems this is very relevant there. I'm glad an article like this can exist here.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#530

Post by caspper69 »

theossuary wrote: post #138
Manuel_D wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But "having their privilege taken away" is a vastly different thing than "answers to a multiple choice test are leaked to an ethnic affinity group". Furthermore, this also negatives impacted Latin and Asian people. And also Black people that weren't part of the aforementioned affinity group.

I simply responded to the above comment saying eliminating the privilege of white people is a dogwhistle for being racist against white people. It's not. I said nothing about the post, and don't know why you're bringing it up. Please try to keep context in mind so you don't make halfbaked statements.

It’s not?

How non-racist of you (and non-presumptuous) to “eliminate someone’s privilege” based solely on the color of their skin. You do know there are poor and disadvantaged white people too, right? You might even be surprised that they outnumber black people.

And shame on you for even thinking you have the right to make such a call, or even entertain such a notion.

Talk about privilege.

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