The CPAT Transportability Study is a four-step process to ensure the critical and
physical fire fighting tasks performed by your fire fighters (FF) are consistent with those tasks
included within the CPAT. A member of your fire department can administer the study with
instruction from an IPG representative consulting via e-mail, phone and FAX. The transportability
study process requires the following steps:
1. The completion of a 31-question critically and physicality job task survey by a random stratified
sample of your incumbent FF's. The results of this survey will determine if the job tasks selected as
the most critical and physical by your incumbent FF's, are the same as those selected by the original 10
fire departments who participated in the validation effort and ultimately selected as CPAT events.
2. The completion of an equipment survey by a member of your fire department with knowledge of the
equipment currently in use by your fire fighters. The equipment survey data ensures the equipment used
by your fire department is similar in dimension and weight to that used in the CPAT.
3. The final step is the collection of your incumbent FF’s opinions regarding the actual CPAT events.
This last step requires incumbent FF’s to experience the CPAT first hand. This process is usually completed
during proctor training when the course is set up to the appropriate specifications. After incumbents experience
all eight events they will be asked to answer a three-part survey. The survey will ask three questions for each
event. Ultimately the results of this survey will assist in strengthening the transportability study by determining
the training requirement, physical effort required and accuracy of simulation for each task.
4. The data collection effort is a key component of the transportability study. Specific instructions for each
component of the data collection effort are written to ensure the data collected is accurate and reflects the
opinions of each incumbent FF who participated in the study. At the conclusion of the final data collection step,
IPG's PH.D. Industrial Phycologist will analyze all data and generate a comprehensive report on the findings of
the study.