The 2018 Colombian Military Academy dataset: a sociological study of population

Base de datos de la Escuela Militar de Cadetes colombiana 2018: un estudio sociologico de su población

Base de dados da Escola Militar de Cadetes colombiana 2018: um estudo sociológico de sua populaçâo

Base de données de l’École militaire des cadets colombienne 2018: une étude sociologique de sa population

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in sociological studies in western countries, especially within the military. The reason for this is not only the value of the gathered social data for decision-making but also, the significance of individual perceptions in determining mutual interaction characteristics, cultural prejudices, and professional acceptance patterns. In particular, the works of Young & Nauta (2013); Soeters, Shields, & Rietjen (2014); Cancian & Klein (2015); Duncanson & Woodward (2015); Kentor & Jorgenson (2017); Swarts (2017); Dandeker (2017); Caforio & Nuciari (2018); De Pedro, Astor, Gilreath, Benbenishty, & Berkowitz (2018); Harris, McDonald, & Sparks (2018); and Soeters (2018) have provided the military community with valuable material for sociological studies to delve into more in-depth research to analyze central issues, such as lack of equity, sexual harassment, and gender-biased policies.

In Latin America, however, military sociological research projects have been scarce and usually limited to the study of the effects of the armed conflict on individuals or social groups (Santamaria, Steiner, Botero, Martinez, & Millan, 2010; Tokatlian, 2010; Suarez Salgado, 2011; Morgan, 2014; Rozo, 2017). Furthermore, the protection of crucial confidential information from alleged adversaries, enmity between the organizations -civil or military- responsible for social studies, and the particularities of civil-military relations have traditionally derived limited goals and low-impact results (Pion-Berlin, Ugues, & Esparza, 2011; Diamond, 2015; Stepan, 2015; Bitar & Gardner, 2016; Mares, 2018). Nevertheless, regional circumstances are changing, and the military is increasingly aware of the need for interdisciplinary area studies that support transformation policies and effectiveness; this is the case of the National Army of Colombia.

The objective of this article is to introduce a military population dataset derived from a sociological study performed at the Officers’ Military Academy of the National Army of Colombia (Escuela Militar de Cadetes General Jose Maria Cordova, hereafter ESMIC¹). The intention is to provide decision-makers and researchers with practical information for future determinations, as well as offer a model for further military sociological studies in the region to help solve recurring inquiries about the uniformed personnel and their families.

This new dataset originated from a research project that sought to meet the needs of ESMIC’s directives and scholars for updated scientific data to enhance the scope and effectiveness of the policies and decisions made. We believe that the study undertaken at the ESMIC’s is comprehensive and highly significant in, at least, two dimensions 1) As the sole means to become an Army Officer in Colombia, the ESMIC integrates a multicultural and multiethnic group of people with the same goal of serving in the military. Consequently, its students may reveal, to a significant extent, the cultural characteristics particular to the Colombian population, which result useful to analyze behavior and thought patterns in the military population. 2) The ESMIC is the principal stage for proposing and implementing transformation plans on military education for the National Army of Colombia; therefore, improving the effectiveness of policies in the ESMIC would positively impact the Army’s training strategies.

The data was gathered via an anonymous pen-and-paper survey of 150 multiple-choice questions in Spanish, designed by the authors of this article with the support of an interdisciplinary group of scholars. The question structure and response choices were evaluated by a double-blind peer review and vetted by the ethics committee of the ESMIC. Previous to its use with the ESMIC population, the survey had two external rounds of preliminary trials with military personnel and two internal rounds with voluntary students within the ESMIC to guarantee its understanding.

The survey was conducted over a two-day period to prevent any information from being released beforehand that would compromise the participants’ disposition or spontaneity. Full anonymity was upheld to prevent possible apprehension by the students and guarantee truthful answers. The responses were collected using optical mark recognition (OMR) software and corroborated by hand to avoid clerical errors. Semi-structured interviews with 20% of the respondents were administered the week after the initial processing of the data to detect possible errors of interpretation or apathy when answering the questions.

At the time of the study (mid-April 2018), the population of the ESMIC was composed of 1,402 students (named Cadets from the first to the third year, and Ensigns during the fourth year) where 1,105 (79%) students were male, and 297 (21%) were female (Figure 1). All of the students were invited to participate voluntarily in the study without receiving any retribution. The number of final participants was 1,120 students (80% of the total ESMIC population), 886 men (80% of the total ESMIC’s male population) and 234 women (79% of the total ESMIC female population).

Figure 1.
Distribution -in percentage- of women and men among the academic levels (I to VIII) at the ESMIC
Source: Prepared by the authors

The study gathered information on six areas of interest 1) Socio-demographic characteristics; 2) Professional behavior; 3) Social patterns; 4) Military values; 5) Civil- military relations; and 6) Integration of women in the military. Each area was divided into two or more sub-areas; the sub-areas included two or more questions. Most of the responses were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, 1 being, strongly agree, and 5 strongly disagree, while others required an open-end scheme, for example, “What is your place of birth? (SD5-1)”.

Socio-demographic characteristics

This area collected data on the background of each respondent to determine patterns of thought, feelings, comportment, and geographical origins. It was divided into the following eight sub-areas: 1) Individual profile (coded SD1); 2) Family structure (SD2); 3) Religious beliefs (SD3); 4) Income (SD4); 5) Birthplace (SD5); 6) Education (SD6); 7) Occupation (SD7); and 8) Professional endogamy (SD8). Through 46 questions, such as “What is your ethnicity? (SD1-4)”, “What are your religious beliefs? (SD3-1)”; “What is your family’s gross monthly income? (SD4-2)”; or “What is the highest academic degree achieved by your mother? (SD6-8)” we attempted to establish a feasible basis for understanding tendencies among the students and the potential impact of this information on their social interaction and military career (Table 1).

Table 1.
Means, standard deviations, and standard error among the first group of measures (Socio-democratic characteristics)

The questions were constructed using the sustained practices presented in a large volume of published studies such as those by Caforio and Martinez (2005); Caforio (2006b); Griffiths, Wardle, Orford, Sproston and Erens (2008); García Castro and Barrantes Umana (2017); and Phelps, Steel, Metcalf and Alkemade (2018).

Social patterns

For this area, we used major studies such as those by Caforio and Martinez (2005); Martinez (2007); Ross (2017); Trail, Meadows, Miles and Karney (2017); Coser (2017); Van Voorhees, E., Wagner, H., Beckham, J., Bradford, D., Neal, L., Penk, W, and Elbogen, E. B. (2018); Chaban, Beltyukova and Fox (2018); and Verweijen (2018) to structure 29 questions, divided into three sub-areas, which were assigned codes. They were 1) Service (S1); 2) Ideology (S2); and 3) Diversity (S3).

By enquiring on topics such as “How important is serving the community for you? (S1-1)” or “Do you agree, disagree or are you apathetic to the death penalty? (S2-2),” we aimed to determine the actions of the students and their relationships with other individuals (Table 2).

Table 2.
Means, standard deviations, and standard error among the second group of measures (Social patterns)

Military values

This area was structured using influential literature such as the research by Huntington (1963); Janowitz (1971, 1977); Moskos (1973); Caforio (2006a); Kier (2017); Brænder and Hoisting (2017); Jansen and Kramer (2018); Hicks, Bell and Gray (2018); Joachim, Martin, Lange, Schneiker and Dau (2018); and Abrahamsen (2018).

It was divided into four coded sub-areas: 1) Teamwork (M1); 2) Discipline (M2); Integrity (M3); and Leadership (M4), and included 22 questions such as “How important is to encourage initiative among subordinates? (M1-4)” or “Do you think that the higher the rank of a superior, the better the leader? (M2-4)” (Table 3).

Table 3.
Means, standard deviations, and standard error among the third group of measures (military values)

Professional behavior

In this area we sought to gather information regarding the conduct of respondents as a future Officer of the National Army of Colombia, aiming to establish the rationale behind their stimulus to serve. This area was divided into two sub-areas: 1) Motivation (P1); and 2) Vocation (P2). It consisted of 13 questions, including questions such as “Before joining the ESMIC, how often were military issues discussed in your family? (P1-1)”; and “What makes you trust more in a member of your military unit? (P2-5)” (Table 4).

Table 4.
Means, standard deviations, and standard error among the fourth group of measures (Professional behavior)

The questionnaire was designed using a similar pattern to the one used in the analyses of Islas (2014); Cruz Piñeiro, Vargas Valle, Hernández Robles and Rodríguez Chávez (2017); De Sousa Almeida, Taboada Ares, Rivas Torres, Iglesias Souto and López Gómez (2017); Izquierdo Martínez, Ledo Royo and Montoya Rivera (2017); Hossain López and Orbañanos Peiro (2017); and Marin and Placencia (2017). More than a half of the responses were assessed on a 5-point Likert-type scale. The others, such as “Do you think that being a soldier is a vocation, like being a priest, or, on the contrary, is it a profession like being a lawyer or an engineer? (P2-1),” required closed-ended answers (yes-no).

Civil-military relations

This area was divided into two sub-areas: 1) Opinions and 2) Patriotism, with ten questions such as “What is your mother political tendency? (CM1-2)” or “What is your perception ofpatriotism in Colombia? (CM2-4).” Here, we tried to determine the understanding of civil-military relations, concepts, and characteristics of ESMIC students and their relatives (Table 5).

Table 5.
Means, standard deviations, and standard error among the fifth group of measures (Civil-military relations)

The questions were designed using the ideas of Bruneau (2005); Born (2006); Feaver (2005); Franke (2006); Harris and Nef (2008); Bruneau and Tollefson (2008); Pion-Berlin (2011); Egnell (2011); Cimbala (2012); Bruneau and Matei (2013); Angstrom (2013); Croissant and Kuehn (2017); Jonas (2018). Most of the responses were attained using the 5-point Likert-type scale.

Integration of women in the military

Here, we aimed to determine the advancements in female participation in the ESMIC by measuring the opinions and comportment of the students in four sub-areas: 1) Equity (IW1); Preparedness (IW2); Support (IW3); and Competitiveness (IW4) widely studied by authors such as Herbert (1998); Boldry, Wood and Kashy (2002); Wright (2015); King (2015); MacKenzie (2015); Duncanson and Woodward (2015); Jensen (2016); Segal, Smith, Segal and Canuso (2016); Moore (2017); Dahl, Kotsadam and Rooth (2018); and Wibben (2018).

This area had 30 questions, such as “How often do you think women are recognized for their achievements in the Army? (IW1-1)” or “Is it appropriate for women to lead units with tactical responsibilities in combat areas? (IW3-6),” which were answered using the 5-point Likert-type scale (Table 6).

Table 6.
Means, standard deviations, and standard error among the sixth group of measures (Integration of women in the military)

Despite the practical and theoretical importance of sociological studies in the military, the amount of research in this field has been limited because of methodological constraints, especially in Latin America. However, new trends of transformation have shown that identifying personnel motivation and context is essential to maximize the impact of policies and decisions. The 2018 military population dataset is, to our knowledge, the first attempt in Colombia to provide a model to both gather and analyze data collected from a determined military community, in this case, the ESMIC.

The methodology and data we introduce provide decision-makers and researchers with a feasible instrument to the study the military population at different levels. This dataset offers a systematic methodology to evaluate and measure six different areas: 1) Socio-demographic characteristics; 2) Professional behavior; 3) Social patterns; 4) Military values; 5) Civil-military relations; and 6) Integration of women in the military. Researchers may focus on a particular area of interest to study its foundations and implications by controlling different variables while protecting the respondents’ anonymity. Given the diverse possibilities this dataset offer, we envision many potential applications to develop an understanding of the education perspectives of future Army Officers.

The authors thank Lyria Esperanza Perilla Toro, Leidy Johanna Cabrera Cabrera, Maria Antonieta Corcione Nieto, and Soraya Nazneen Husain Talero for their invaluable contributions during the planning of the study. In addition, the authors would like to express their gratitude to the Colombian Military Academy (Escuela Militar de Cadetes General Jose Maria Cordova) for their support for this research.