Selection of Norwegian police drone operators: an evaluation of selected cognitive tests from "The Vienna Test System"

A nationwide sample of 129 police officers participated in a study aimed at validating and presenting practical implications of a selection procedure for applicants to an educational program for Norwegian police drone pilots. The subjects were part of a selection program for a training and qualification course for police drone pilots. The selection program consisted of tests of spatial orientation, logical reasoning, attentional selection, sustained attention, and visual short-term memory, in addition to a performance test in a drone flight simulator. The aim of the study was to evaluate the cognitive tests used in the selection program and their relation to performance during the simulated flight. The results from the untrained applicants revealed low-to-moderate intercorrelations of the cognitive tests. Only spatial orientation, logical reasoning, and attentional selection were correlated to the performance measures of skills and proficiency. Stepwise regression analysis showed that only spatial orientation and attentional selection had unique contributions in explaining the variance in both measures of performance. Implications are discussed on both practical and scientific levels. The positive implications of using untrained respondents, the use of proficiency measures in addition to skills, the building of a clearinghouse for drone selection data, and considering both the job-analyzes and the total test-performance when interpreting the applicant's test-scores are discussed.