Many people opt to join the United States military because it provides many benefits not found in other professions. Some advantages that military workers enjoy include education, travel allowances, health cover, mortgage loans, and cash bonuses. These benefits make people want to join the force and boost their morale in the workplace. Nonetheless, the benefits also come with a fair share of challenges that must be studied and analyzed. Literature on the difficulties with the United States military benefits is limited, with many scholars focusing on the general challenges faced by the service. However, the literature on the educational benefits provided for military service people is pervasive. The purpose of this study is to provide a review and analysis of an article relevant to the United States military benefits. The article under consideration is a peer-reviewed article titled “Are current military education benefits efficient and effective for the services?” published by Wenger et al. in 2017.
Introduction of the Study Used to Explore the Research Question
The research scope was focused mainly on the U.S. Department of Defence programs that provide education benefits, concentrating on the Post-9/11 GI bill (PGIB) and tuition assistance programs (TA). The authors structured the study into different chapters, with the first chapter introducing the military benefits. The second chapter focused on how the benefits transition into the civilian world. Chapter three focused on the perspective of recruits with the methodology, findings, and summary of their feedback adequately documented. The fourth topic used the same structure as the third to gain the perspective of veteran students on the importance of military education. The fifth chapter discussed the empirical strategies that the stakeholders should employ and the study results. Chapter six looked at sources of information other than the discussed ones, with the final chapter dealing with the conclusions and recommendations. The article’s research question was how the military education benefits influence employee recruiting and retention.
Method Used to Support the Claim of the Article
The article’s claims were fulfilled by first collecting data from administrative sources and service men and women. A descriptive data analysis was first conducted to confirm the study’s hypothesis. The study used a mixed research method where qualitative and quantitative methods of collecting data were employed. Qualitative data collection methods used included the delayed entry program, where the opinions of new service members were collected and analyzed. To better understand the impact of the education programs on the military people, their data was analyzed using Google Analytics. In order to comprehend how the force members used the knowledge acquired from the education benefit, a status of force survey was used. To indicate how education was used in other areas of life, surveys had to be done on military students in the U.S.
Quantitative data for the research was gathered from different governmental sources, including branches of the U.S. Armed Services, VA, and defense workforce data center. A longitudinal database from 2005 to 2015 was set up where the information from different sources was merged for analysis. In addition, the authors decided to use the database to see how TA and PGIB were helping in the selection and recruitment of new members. The quantitative data allowed the study to test if TA programs were complementary to the PGIB. Despite having rich access to data, the study faced some data limitations, the most notable being the introduction of the GI bill in the middle of the period under study.
Data Collected and the Results of the Study
Data from all four branches of the United States military, the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, were collected. The authors decided to collect their data in Texas, Maryland, California, and Virginia, where one city from the four states was chosen. The participants were asked various questions ranging from their recruitment decisions, knowledge of how the benefits worked, awareness of the TA program, and how they would use the educational benefits. The data collected proved that the military services and education benefits had a massive impact on the livelihood of civilians. Data on recruits shows that assessing education benefits made them quickly adapt to the new environment. The veteran students proved this observation by showing that both current and previous benefits were valuable.
Conclusions Drawn from the Study
The authors concluded that many military people use tuition assistance when dealing with the introduction part of their course. Data revealed that few service members achieved credits through TA, although literature shows the same degree of credits earned in college. The hypothesis that PGIB was likely to bring high-quality servicemen and women was confirmed as it ensured that a large pool of prospecting employees would be available due to the excellent and lucrative educational benefits. The study did not find evidence of the bill being a motivator of tuition assistance. However, this assistance meant that the time in military school was reduced, and students could utilize the time left in their PGIB benefits for enrolling in post-graduate studies.
The authors concluded that if all other factors remain constant, the impact of PGIB and TA on recruitment and retention is small. Nonetheless, they recommended that military service members be encouraged to use tuition assistance programs. Wenger et al. (2017) proposed that service members always be provided with information about critical issues on time to ensure maximum benefits. As for the management, Wenger et al. (2017) proposed that it should continue with its educational benefit program for the military people, track the progress of the service members and align the Department of Defense with the changes in PGIB. The authors argued that even though the interviewees were just a sample, their overall experiences could be used to model the rest of the population (Wenger et al., 2017). The study recommended future research on the issue using more data from administrative bodies and service members.
The researchers ‘ conclusions can be sound and unbiased based on the qualitative and quantitative data. Particularly recommendable from this study is how each topic has a summary conclusion where the findings of each subheading are briefly explained. The minor conclusions and implications are appropriately tied up in the last chapter. It provides the best alternative to take going forward because it is evidence-based. The limitation of the research article is that it fails to explain whether military education benefits influence the recruitment and retention of personnel. It, thus, complicates the matter by focusing more on the merits and demerits of PGIB and TA. Its format makes it hard for an average reader to grasp the theme, and different topics make the study look complicated.
References
Wenger, J. W., Miller, T., Baird, M. D., Buryk, P., Daugherty, L., Graf, M., Hollands, S., Jahedi, S. & Yeung, D. (2017). Are current military education benefits efficient and effective for the services? RAND Corporation. Web.