Adapting to Learning Styles would enhance ATC training
I have recently read an article on the Harvard Business Review [March 2005] about three different learning styles. Each one of us has a preferred style for learning. The three styles mentioned in this article are:
The analyser who likes to examine the elements of a problem and to reconstruct them piece by piece.
The doer who learns by performing and
The watchers who learn a great deal from seeing the total performance of how it should be from beginning to end.
So how does this relate to ATC training?
It relates into how flexible is our training provision to adapt to each of our student’s styles.Â
One of our problems is the failure rates during training. Is this solely because of the level of cognitive skills required to perform ATC tasks? Or is it maybe also partly due to the concentration of the learning by doing [and to a lesser extent the learning by analysing, but very little of learning by watching] style of training that we impose on our students?
Should controllers be predominantly doers? Who are able to act on problems immediately? Would analysers or watcher not make good controllers? Will the analysers take too much time analysing? Or once trained and skilled are they capable of going through this process in virtually no time? In the latter case, would they not be also more precise and efficient than the doers who first act and then think?
The debate is open, however what is important in training is to recognise that these styles exist and that, if selection and recruitment are allowing students with varying learning styles to start training, then training should accomodate to these styles.Â
