I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed. ~George Carlin
Seems everyone is being forced to change. The world we live in is more connected than ever before and it seems uncertainty and unanticipated challenges are everywhere. In the business world, Clark and Gottfredson (2008) believe that enduring competitive advantage is built on an organization’s ability to respond to adaptive challenge. In the military, the ambiguous, changing nature of the operational environment requires the development of agile, adaptive leaders (Shadrick, Lussier, & Fultz, 2007). So how are we developing adaptive thinking? It seemed to me like a topic uniquely suited for simulations that are able to provide virtual worlds. However, the folks at the Army Research Institute (ARI) are a bit cautious on the ability of simulations to do this.
The Army Research Institute believes they’ve found a successful approach to training adaptive thinking skills and it is not simply placing participants in a realistic, unstructured, whole-task environment using some form of costly, high-fidelity live, virtual, or constructive simulation (Shadrick, Lussier, & Fultz, 2007). The training approach ARI is promoting is called Think Like a Commander (TLAC) and is based on a framework of deliberate practice. TLAC is not your traditional software simulation. It is a set of cognitive drills that present learners with a scenario in a 2-4 minute audio-video file. After learners are introduced to the scenario, they are asked to list items that should be considered before making a decision. The list the learner provides is then compared to a list previously produced by experts to determine a score.
I believe the research findings on TLAC are significant. There are three studies concerning the TLAC training approach I reviewed. The first study assessed 24 officers improvement in adaptive thinking using TLAC. It used a repeated measures analysis of variance to confirm a significant linear trend (Shadrick & Lussier, 2004). The second study examined the difference in scores between officers who had experience in Afghanistan and Iraq and those that didn’t. Using a two-way analysis of variance, the authors found a significant difference in the scores of experienced officers vs. their non-experienced counterpart (Shadrick, Lussier, & Fultz, 2007). The third study found that training received in TLAC transfers to other tasks with low surface similarity (Shadrick, Crabb, Lussier, & Burke, 2007). I believe this research suggests something good about the approach being taken with TLAC.
While these studies may not be “strong” evidence for this approach (i.e., I didn’t see a clear statement that the groups were randomized and in study 1 there was only one group), the studies certainly seem to be “possible” evidence of effectiveness. I’d encourage you to look at the studies, but if you only look at one thing, I’d look at the discussion of the second study (cf., Shadrick, Lussier, & Fultz, 2007). In that discussion, the authors create a distinction between training and practice pointing out that most of our simulation efforts focus only on practice. In that discussion, they provide a list of instructional principles to insure quality training for a simulator.
“a) identification of tasks, b) presentation of enabling knowledge, c) demonstration of how the task should be performed, d) the opportunity for the trainee to perform the task, e) provision for feedback to the trainee concerning task performance, and f) the opportunity to practice task to mastery under increasingly difficult, but realistic conditions (Black & Quinkert, 1994; Black, 1996; Holding, 1965, as cited in Black, 1996)” (p. 18).
Of these components of effective training, the authors suggest that simulations by themselves only enable the opportunity to perform and the opportunity to practice. “Much additional exercise design work must be done to add the other components” (Shadrick, Lussier, & Fultz, 2007, p. 19).
References
Clark, T. R. & Gottfredson, C. A. (2008). In search of learning agility. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.1054
Shadrick, S. B., Crabb, B. T., Lussier, J. W., Burke, T. J. (2007). Positive transfer of adaptive battlefield thinking skills (Research Report 1873). U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/RR_1873.pdf
Shadrick, S. B., Lussier, J. W. , & Fultz, C. (2007). Accelerating the development of adaptive performance: Validating the think like a commander training (Research Report 1868). U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/RR_1868.pdf
Shadrick, S. B. & Lussier, J. W. (2004). Assessment of the think like a commander training program (Research Report 1824). U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/RR_1824.pdf
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