Development and Validation of Nigerian Army Commanding Officers Job Descriptive Index

Abstract

The research adopted an ex-post-facto design based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of data. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) were conducted with commanding officers. The FGDs were conducted with officers purposively drawn from incumbent commanding officers in the Nigerian Army (NA) as at the time of the study. The IDIs, were conducted using officers who had completed their tenure as commanding officers. Following the FGDs and IDIs, was a questionnaire survey. Respondents comprised 98 officers with a mean age of 47 years (SD = 3.49). The respondents were drawn from the rank of Major to Colonel who were commanding officers. These comprised 96 Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels (95.6%) and 2 Majors (4.4%) who were in acting capacity during the period. FGDs and IDI guides were used to generate the Data depicting the COs Job Descriptive Index (JDI). Subsequently, a psychological scale measuring the COs' JDI was developed and standardised among the respondents. Validation of the JDI was carried out using item analysis and inter-item correlation. Factor analyses was applied to analyse the Data (Extraction method = Principal Component Analysis; Rotation method = Varimax with Kaiser Normalisation). The item analysis result indicated that there were 67 core items that explained the common job activities of the CO with correlation coefficient ranging between 0.6 and 0.78. Factor analysis result showed that the JDI loaded on eight factors with Eigen values ranging from 32.9 to 1.34.The factors depicted eight core functions of the commanding officer namely: general, command and training, administration, welfare, security, communication, liaison, and miscellaneous. The commanding officers' job description index constituted psychological constructs, which had implications for appointment, training and performance evaluation of COs in the Nigerian Army. The finding recommends that the Nigerian Army should adopt the JDI in this study for use in the Service with a view to enhancing professionalism among its commanding officers.