Training Knowledge and Skills for the Networked Battlefield Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Grant (MURI) |
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Army Research Office W9112NF-05-1-0153 May 1, 2005-April 30, 2010 University of Colorado Principal Investigator: Alice F. Healy Co-Principal Investigator: Lyle E. Bourne, Jr. |
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES:
The goal of this project is to construct a theoretical and empirical framework that can account for and make accurate predictions about the effectiveness of different training methods over the full range of militarily relevant tasks. The ability to predict the outcomes of different training methods on particular tasks will, as a natural by-product, point to ways to optimize training. Many of the basic mechanisms of knowledge and skill acquisition are similar across a variety of perceptual, cognitive, and motor tasks. However, some specific skills have unique features that might demand special training techniques. To date, only a few studies have compared learning in different types of tasks. We will focus on an analysis of which findings, mechanisms, and principles broadly generalize across learning types and task requirements. This evaluation will allow us to make specific predictions about the effectiveness of training and general recommendations to improve training that would apply to virtually any DoD training program. We will also identify the unique features of specific knowledge and skills, where they exist, and how best to train them. We will develop taxonomies for both types of training and types of tasks that will span the range of training types, from classroom to simulator, and task types, from simple individual tasks (e.g., data entry, target detection) to complex tasks involving team cognition. We will extend our taxonomic analysis to include two new dimensions: training principles and performance measures. Two types of working predictive models of training effects will be developed and contrasted for their ability to account for and predict training outcomes: One type of model will be based on IMPRINT, and the other type will be based on the ACT-R approach. We will ensure that these models are mathematically sound, computationally feasible, and DoD applicable.
Training for Efficient, Durable and Flexible Performance in the Military
Army Research Institute Contract DASW01-03-K-0002
October 1, 2002-September 30, 2007
University of Colorado
Principal Investigator: Alice F. Healy
Co-Principal Investigator: Lyle E. Bourne, Jr.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES:
The proposed research builds on our earlier studies of skill training, retention of trained skills after a long delay interval, and transfer of trained skills to novel situations. On the basis of that research we were able to develop a set of training principles that optimize the efficiency and durability of trained performance. But we have also discovered that conditions that lead to durability often, and perhaps always, lead to limited flexibility or adaptivity. In fact, in our most recent research, we have found that training has little or no benefit if there are discernable differences between the training and testing situations in the background or context, even if there are no changes made in the primary task requirements. The focus of this proposed project is, thus, to develop training procedures for knowledge and skill that will survive primary task or background changes and, thereby, produce flexible, as well as efficient and durable, performance in military tasks. The proposed experiments are divided into three major groups. Experiments in the first group are designed to understand how individuals can be trained to contend with an unpredictable flow of information often large in quantity, rapidly presented, and ambiguous. Experiments in the second group are aimed to identify training factors that promote adaptive and flexible performance in the field. The final group of experiments examines performance in dynamic and changing task environments. We conclude with an effort to create, still in the laboratory, a complex set of tasks similar to those encountered by a digitally proficient pilot operating a fully computerized cockpit, and not unlike those of the digitally proficient "land warrior" soldier of tomorrow. The major aim of this set of experiments is to determine the extent to which training principles, first established in a simpler laboratory task, generalize to performance under these more complicated conditions.
Towards the Improvement of Astronaut Training
NASA Ames Research Center NNA07CN59A
January 15, 2007-Janurary 14, 2010
University of Colorado
Principal Investigator: Alice F. Healy
Consultant: Lyle E. Bourne, Jr.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES:
Astronaut training requires considerable time and effort and is of the utmost importance to the success of the mission. The durability of the trained knowledge and skills across delays between the time when the knowledge and skills are acquired and when they are needed depends on the effectiveness of training. Training effectiveness requires that the trainee be able to generalize the knowledge and skills learned in the training context to novel situations and environments. As the result of recent research in experimental psychology and related disciplines, a number of training principles have been developed to maximize the efficiency, durability, and generalizability of training. These principles and the findings on which they are based will be reviewed, the in-flight activities of astronauts will be analyzed, and experiments will be conducted to test training principles for the components of the in-flight activities. Specifically, the present project will include three different components: (a) an updated literature review of empirical support for training principles, (b) a task analysis of astronaut in-flight activities, with special emphasis on the identification of elementary taxons, and (c) new experiments testing the application of training principles to the taxons that comprise the in-flight task requirements of astronauts. The first year of the project will be devoted entirely to the first two of these components. The second and third years will involve all three components, including the experimental component.
Efficacy of DoubleLine with SoundSpel in the Improvement of Children's Reading
American Literacy Council
April 1, 2005-December 31, 2007
University of Colorado
Principal Investigator: Alice F. Healy
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES:
The proposed research funded by the American Literacy Council (ALC) involves tutoring elementary school-aged children in reading using a unique teaching tool. The ALC has invented a reading method that uses a phonetic spelling system (SoundSpel) to facilitate the learning of unfamiliar words in print. In this system, each word of text is rewritten beneath the original word using this phonetic system, which eliminates the ambiguity of vowel pronunciation and confusing consonants by rewriting the same sound in the same way no matter the original word. A computer program called Double Line has already been written to change text automatically to this regularized system. The goal of the proposed work is to improve reading skills by allowing the child (or even adult learner) to use the phonetic spelling whenever an unfamiliar word is encountered, while familiar words can be read as they were presented originally. This program could not only facilitate reading but also encourage an increase in the amount of reading. As the amount of reading increases, so will the number of exposures to previously difficult words, so that eventually the child should rely less and less on SoundSpell and should read mostly without its tutoring.
