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SELECTION AND TRAINING 



time, if it was being presented the correct 

 number of times for reinforcement, and so 

 on. Tests were made for the trainers, so 

 that weaknesses requiring review or revised 

 training would be detected. Through such 

 monitoring, the trainer was made more ef- 

 fective. Studies of a great variety of train- 

 ing devices should yield a body of experience 

 as to sound design. 



Wolfle has summarized the experience of 

 those designing training aids in the last war 

 (58, pp. 140-154). He demonstrates how 

 application of principles of psychology im- 

 proved these devices and stresses the im- 

 portance of a research validation for every 

 new trainer developed. Because training 

 aids have their own technology, it is im- 

 portant for Wolfle 's brief summary to be 

 elaborated in a form available to all psy- 

 chologists. Since synthetic trainers are 

 little used except in the armed services, psy- 

 chologists normally have no chance to de- 

 velop know-how regarding their construc- 

 tion. They would be greatly aided by a 

 thorough manual on the technology of 

 trainers. Such a volume, prepared by en- 

 gineers and psychologists, would draw on all 

 available experience. It would not only list 

 such general principles as "a scoring device 

 is required," but would also discuss the types 

 of scoring devices so far employed, their 

 merits and limitations, whether it is desir- 

 able to have continuous scoring or periodic 

 scoring, and other detailed questions. Such 

 a thorough review of wartime experience 

 would not only provide a guide to each new 

 project, but would focus attention on ques- 

 tions which have not yet been settled ex- 

 perimentally. It would do much to elim- 

 inate the frequent experience of the last 

 ten years, in which one group of scientists 

 and engineers has laboriously and expen- 

 sively reinvented a technique already in use 

 somewhere else. Contracts should be let 

 during peacetime to encourage groups of 

 psychologists to work closely with designers 

 and manufacturers in developing specific 

 trainers. 



In the design of training films, experimen- 

 tation is required on many fundamental 

 questions. Do questions inserted in a film 

 improve its effectiveness? What types of 

 pictures present ideas most clearly? What 

 kind of learning is aided by pictures? Does 

 it improve learning if an idea is woven into 

 a dramatic story rather than presented 

 straightforward? Is synchronized sound 

 necessary for an effective film? What ideas 

 can be presented as well by film-strip as by 

 motion picture, or by silent picture as by 

 sound picture? The answers to dozens of 

 such questions, some of which are being 

 attacked by the Instructional Film Research 

 Project of Pennsylvania State College, will 

 permit producers to make better films and 

 will possibly lead to tremendous savings in 

 production costs. Costs alone are not a 

 major consideration, but reducing costs also 

 increases the number of films that can be 

 made. Since present films are made largely 

 by traditional rules which may or may not 

 be valid, large gains in learning impact are 

 to be expected if current and future research 

 can provide a scientific guide to making 

 training films. In this connection, attention 

 should be drawn to an excellent critical re- 

 view of Navy films by Captain Exton, for- 

 merly with the Bureau of Naval Personnel 

 (15, pp. 55-70). His dissatisfaction with 

 the "Holl3avood influence" is thoroughly jus- 

 tified, although the suggestions he makes for 

 improving films have frequently not been 

 established by research. Many effective 

 studies may be made, testing one principle 

 of film design at a time to determine how 

 sound and important it is. Research should 

 test present films in great detail, to learn 

 what portions of them work and why. 

 Other studies should make experimental 

 films testing one question of film design at 

 a time. 



There are two competing points of view 

 regarding training aids. One sees the aid 

 as a master teacher, replacing the instructor. 

 There are functions that self-sufficient train- 

 ing aids can perform, and research should 



