Date of Award
Spring 2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
English
Program/Concentration
English
Committee Director
Daniel P. Richards
Committee Member
Julia Romberger
Committee Member
Charles B. Keating
Committee Member
Ashley Hall
Abstract
Every year, Air Force officers receive an Officer Performance Report (OPR) from their supervisory chain of commands. Air Force regulations state that officers should not write the content for their own reports; however, this is not what occurs in practice as “Ratees” usually compose their own evaluations. At the time of writing, the Air Force has not established a service-wide training or education program to teach officers how to compose these complex and career-altering documents, leaving Ratees to figure out how to navigate the genre’s unique conventions for themselves.
This dissertation examines what rhetorical knowledge Air Force officers must possess to write effective OPRs as well as how and where they accumulate this knowledge. Findings from surveys and interviews with participants—past and present Air Force officers—reveal that officers must possess the personal initiative to seek instruction and feedback from others to improve their OPR writing. Additionally, officers inherently develop a three-step learning process to teach themselves how to compose OPRs. This learning process parallels established rhetorical genre studies (RGS) teaching approaches, despite officers’ never using RGS-focused terminology.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
DOI
10.25777/595c-wv82
ISBN
9798280752559
Recommended Citation
Kohlhepp, Joanna K..
""What a Good OPR Looks Like": How Air Force Officers Learn to Write Performance Evaluations Without Formal Training"
(2025). Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Dissertation, English, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/595c-wv82
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_etds/486