Technical b r Report - International Military Testing Association

SYMPOSILW
TRi.“cLATION OF TRAINING RESEARCII INTO TRAINING ACTION - A MlSSING LINK
In t rcduc t ory Remarks
C. Douglas Mavo
Naval Technical Training Command
I accepted the chairman’s job in this symposium with the understanding
that I would rot have to be the kind of chairman who is neutral at fmpartial,
but instead that I could expose my biases on ~!le Translation
of Training Research into Training Action, the same as anyore else. So,
in introducing t*:e topic it should not be surprising if i express some
of the thoughts that I may have been repressing during the two decades
that I have been involved in training research and in translating it
into training action.
During this period, we have won a few. We are all familiar with instances
in which the results of training research and development have
been implemented into the en-going training operation and have contributed
materially to it. Two examples that readily come to mind in Naval
Technical Training (the area of opcrntion with which I am most familiar)
are programmed instruction during the decade of the 68’s and the implementation
of computer based instruction which is underway on a substantial
scale at the present time.
But for every R&D project that has had an impact upon training there are
numerous ones that have not. Xov it-can be argued that this is toe nature
of the beast, that risk taking is an inherent and necessary part of the
R6D process. No doubt this is true, hut I submit that the normal risks
associated with RCD do not even begin to account for the unused, and in
some instances unusable, volume of trafning research.
Much of the systematic civilian work in the area of translating educa-
Lional research into educational change has been accomplished under the
rubric of “linear change models in education.” Xost of these models
describe a linear sequence of functions that include: research (the function
in which new knowledge is produced), development (in whfch a product
or procedure based on the new knowledge is engineered and evaluated), diffusion
(in which the generality and extent of applicability of the prod.lct
or procedure is explored), and adoption (the function of implementing an
appropriate form of the product or procedure in an on-going educational
situation). It is generally conceded that in order for such a model to
work, at least one of two conditions must exist; either the people involved
in the linear sequence of functions (i.e. research, development,
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