506 



SELECTION AND TRAINING 



shipboard attack teachers, filmstrips, etc.) 

 which can be used to dupHcate school train- 

 ing. But there are special problems of ship- 

 board training which have never been 

 studied. Teaching methods which must 

 function without a qualified instmctor prob- 

 ably must be different from normal ones. 

 How different, no one has determined. 



Curricula and Methods 



In designing any training, one must decide 

 what to include. Some things can be 

 learned at sea. Some theoretical topics can 

 be included or omitted, at the option of the 

 course planner. Some practical procedures, 

 like making certain repairs, can be taught 

 in school, or left in a manual to be looked up 

 when they are needed. Whether these 

 things should be placed in a curriculum is 

 subject to research; in the past it has been 

 left solely to judgment. 



Use of Training Time 



An effective training course is one in which 

 every minute of the working day contributes 

 to the man's later performance on duty. 

 In war or peace, time cannot be wasted on 

 ineffective lectures, on drills which actually 

 confuse men at later stages of training, on 

 films which entertain but do not change 

 behavior, or on exercises which merely fill 

 time when proper training facilities are not 

 available for all men. Most training pro- 

 grams contain one or all of these dead spots. 

 The straightfonvard research design would 

 be to omit some of the topics or drill sessions, 

 and to determine whether the omission made 

 any noticeable difference in the man's per- 

 formance, judged by any objective standard. 

 Thus, a study of code learning showed that 

 four hours drill per day taught as much as 

 seven hours, saving three hours per man per 

 day (32). An even more striking example 

 of wasteful course planning is an Air Force 

 study of gunners. When men who had 

 taken the regular basic (ground) gunnery 

 course were compared with men not so 

 trained, there was no discernible difference 



in the groups after five air-training missions 

 (16). In addition to studies of the training 

 sessions themselves, studies should consider 

 the effect of the total day's program during 

 training. What is the maximum number of 

 hours per day that can profitably be spent 

 on balanced and varied training? What is 

 the effect on course learning of effort put into 

 calisthenics, policing barracks, etc.? 



There is a shortcut, namely, the applica- 

 tion of general principles of learning (58, pp. 

 124-12G). Some of these are easily stated: 

 Men forget a large amount of what they 

 learn unless it is overlearned (practiced well 

 beyond the point where they can just do the 

 task) or unless they understand the reason 

 why a certain performance is correct. Men 

 who leani to perform an act under one set 

 of conditions may not be able to perform it 

 under other conditions. Some men find it 

 harder to learn a skill than do others, and 

 require more time. Spaced practice is better 

 than massed practice for most jobs; six 

 twenty-minute drills generally make a better 

 program than two one-hour sessions. 

 Knowledge that is tied together is effective 

 knowledge; a course must be as unified as 

 possible. Any training curriculum can be 

 analyzed in terms of these and other Imown 

 principles. Such analysis should lead to re- 

 vision of present curricula, sharpening of 

 theoretical problems requiring research, and 

 development of general plans for future 

 courses. Application of general principles 

 must itself be checked by research; in code- 

 voice training, how drills were distributed 

 within a day was found to make no real 

 difference despite theoretical expectations 

 (31). 



Instrv/itional Methods 



How a man should be taught can be 

 answered partly from existing knowledge. 

 Research on learning is extensive and defi- 

 nitely applies to naval training. It is known 

 that men have trouble learning when they 

 must learn many different words to express 

 the same ideas, and this principle was ap- 



