| dc.description.abstract | The present study was part of a larger research project, “FSK-studien 2017”, that was investigating gender differences among the applicants in the body’s physiological response to extreme depletion of the body’s resources (Vikmoen, Teien, Rones, & Raastad, 2017).
The aim of this study was threefold: first, based on their psychological characteristics, we wondered if we could distinguish the military conscripts applying to positions in two of the Norwegian Special Operations Command’s (NORSOC) training wing platoons, from those applicants who were deselected. Second, we wanted to know if we could find differences between the male and the female applicants. Third, we wanted to examine if the Norwegian version of the applied instrument, the Psychological Characteristics of Developing Excellence Questionnaire 2 (PCDEQ2), measures what it claims to measure.
The respondents filled out the PCDEQ2 once. Two MANOVAs were conducted on the data set, showing a significant result on the sixth factor named “active coping”. The admitted applicants scored significantly higher (p = 0.05) than the deselected. Additionally, we could distinguish the women from the men on the seventh factor named “clinical indicators”. The women scored significantly higher (p = 0.01) than the men.
A factor analysis was conducted on the questionnaire, following the initial test protocol set by Collins (to review). We were not able to recreate the same factor structure as in the original PCDEQ2 from the Norwegian version.
Conclusively, we can state that, in the current sample, those who are admitted to the platoons are significantly better at active coping, and that the female applicants report a significant stronger association with clinical indicators than the men. Finally, we recommend further validation of the questionnaire. | nb_NO |
