Committee on the Youth Population and Military Recruitment — Phase II & Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education 
Evaluating Military Advertising and Recruiting [PDF ebook] 
Theory and Methodology

It is anticipated that in the coming decade the Department of Defense (Do D) willfield and test new advertising and recruiting initiatives designed to improve therecruiting outlook. The Do D needs a comprehensive research and evaluation strategybased on sound research principles that will ensure valid, reliable, and relevant resultsto discover the most promising policies. The primary objective of this book is to helpthe Do D improve its research on advertising and recruiting policies. Evaluating Military Advertising and Recruiting: Theory and Methodology presents aframework for evaluation that links different types of research questions to variousresearch methodologies. The framework identifies four major categories of researchquestions and four broad methodological approaches. The first category of researchquestion asks "What does a target audience see as attractive or unattractive featuresof a program?" It is well suited to examination via qualitative methods, such as focusgroups, unstructured or open-ended surveys, and interviews. The second category ofresearch question asks "What is the effect of a program on specified attitudes orbehavioral intentions?" It is well suited to examination via surveys, experiments, andquasi experiments. The third category of research question asks "What is the effectof a proposed new program on enlistment?" It is well suited to examination viaexperiments and quasi experiments. The final category of research question asks"What is the effect of an existing program on enlistment?" It is well suited to examinationvia econometric modeling.