TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems, Human Systems

OBJECTIVE: Develop tools for instructors and facilitators of large-scale training exercises that can be used to provide skill-appropriate training objectives for individual, team, and unit level participants, while maintaining the overall integrity and realism of the mission.

DESCRIPTION: Large-scale training exercises are among the most logistically challenging training evolutions. Due to range costs, Temporary Active Duty (TAD) costs, conflicting unit schedules and other logistical factors, it is imperative to maximize the return on training investment while an exercise is underway.

Disparities in knowledge, skill level, or expertise, either within or between teams, often compromise the effectiveness of the large scale training exercise. If the training requirements are too challenging for the less experienced participants, they are not likely to benefit, while conversely if the requirements are targeted to less experienced participants, the more experienced participants will not receive maximum training benefit and become bored.

Innovative approaches to this problem might be modeled after strategy games such as "Go" (Hasan and Crawford, 2006) which simulate contexts requiring complex collaborative activity by teams, providing a medium for research and training in the area of networkcentrism. Grunhdstein and Rosenthal-Sabroux (2005) noted the tendency to view knowledge as an object, and by doing so, disregard the importance of people. Their proposed empirical model emphasized the link between knowing and acting, with regard to the constraints of the socio-technical environment. Taking an entirely different tact, Hussain and Ferguson (2005) demonstrated that it is feasible to perform large-scale military training exercise using a commercial off-the-shelf game with low development time and high re-use of training content.

Regardless of the approach, innovative tools for tailoring training for disparately skilled participants that identify and accommodate skill level, performance, and individual differences are needed. These tools should provide the individual, team or unit with challenging training objectives while providing the instructors with an assessment of performance relative to initial skill levels.

PHASE I: Define and develop a methodology for identifying useful algorithms for the classification of task specific skill levels of individuals, teams and units engaged in a large scale exercise. Propose initial concept of operations for development in Phase II.

PHASE II: Produce a prototype of the proposed tool(s), to include details of the data that will be required for the tools, how the data will be collected and inputted, and how the tools shall function. Develop and demonstrate empirically validated fully functional prototype tools incorporating the algorithms and methodology generated in Phase I.

PHASE III: Finalize design developed in Phase II and transition to interested parties.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Potential non-military application opportunities exist for law enforcement and first-responder training.

REFERENCES:
1. Dreyfus, H.C. & Dreyfus, S.E. (1980). "A five-stage Model of the Mental Activities Involved in Directed Skill Acquisition", ORC 80-2, 1980 University of California, Berkley.

2. Vincenzi, D. A., Patrey, J. E., Campbell, J., Foster, C., Grubb, J. D., & Merket, D. C. (2007). Training value of the fleet synthetic training event for the E-2C Hawkeye. Proceedings of the Human Systems Integration Symposium, Annapolis, MD.

3. Hasan, H., Crawford, K. (2006) The Application of Go*Team to Network-Centric Characteristics. Faculty of Commerce. http://ro.uow.edu.au/commpapers/286

4. Grundstein, M. & Rosenthal-Sabroux, C. (2005). Towards a Model for Global Knowledge Management Within the Enterprise (MGKME). In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Managing Modern Organizations with Information Technology, (IRMA05 Proceedings pp. 1259-1262). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.
http://www.lamsade.dauphine.fr/FILES/publi816.pdf

5. Hussain, T. S., Ferguson, W. (2005). Efficient Development of Large-Scale Military Training Environments using a Multi-Player Game. BBN Technologies. http://openmap.bbn.com/~thussain/publications/2005_SISO_paper_webpost.pdf

KEYWORDS: Large-Scale Training Exercises; Skill Acquisition; Team Training; Tailored Training; Live, Virtual & Constructive Training; Distributed Mission Training