Sustainment of Individual and Collective Future Combat Skills: Modeling and Research Methods

摘要

Army commanders have insufficient time to train on every mission requirement and organizational standard. Mission essential task lists help to scope training requirements based on current performance. However, there presently is no way for unit trainers to systematically schedule their training based on expected performance. The ability to project training status outward, beyond current performance levels, would enhance decisions about scheduling training. The ARI has previously investigated skill retention in order to develop such a capability. Changes in the operational environment and in the theoretical understanding of human performance have created opportunities to advance ARI's research program and have necessitated that these advances be made to assist the warfighter. Our research assessed the implications of the contemporary operational environment for maintaining skilled performance in light of a host of theoretical factors thought to influence skill decay. We implemented our findings in a survey-based instrument to be used for rating individual and collective tasks on several of these retention factors. This paper describes the survey-based instrument, its development, and initial evaluation. In future work, task ratings assigned using this instrument will be compared to actual performance data in order to build and validate a quantitative model of individual and collective skill retention.