7.1 Foundations of Training and Leaming 267 Principles of Learning Practice and Overlearning The old saying "practice makes perfect"is applicable to training.particularly because practice is critical to retaining newly learned skills.The Greek philosopher Aristotle stated that "what we have to do we learn by doing."which indicates that active practice Active practice Appruac has been emphasized for many centuries.The principle of active practice is still used h城mvolves attivel today in many training programs.For example,military recruits actively practice assem- particpating in a training or e线akhn bling and disassembling guns,which promotes learning far more effectively than having paely observing someone them passively watch someone else,such as a drill sergeant,perform the task.Recent e performing the task. research indicates that active practice emphasizing learning and exploration during com. puter training tasks has positive effects on transfer of training back to the job(Bell Kozlowski,2008). Training researchers and practitioners often ask,"How much practice is enough?"Some suggest that it is sufficient to practice until the task can be performed once without errors. However,as many concert musicians can attest,this approach is unlikely to lead to ade. quate,long-term task performance.If you have ever taken piano lessons,you have proba- bly observed that playing a piece without errors in one practice session does not in any way guarantee that you will be able to play it flawlessly a week later or even the next day.Instead. you need to continue practicing it to the point of overlearning.Similarly,training pro- grams should emphasize overlearning by presenting trainees with several extra learning opportunities even after they have demonstrated mastery of a task.Overlearning results in automaticity,which enables the person to perform the task with limited attention.An Automaticity Result that example of automaticity is when experienced drivers pay little attention to steering while ocurs when tasks can be driving.People often refer to automaticity by saying they can do the task"on autopilot"or performed with limited gon品y to develop in my sleep. when leamers are gven Overlearning is critical in jobs in which the task is not likely to be performed on the job extra learning opportunities very often,where performance on the first attempt is critical,and where there is little to no after they have demonstrated room for error;examples include the avoidance of accidents while driving,emergency mastery of a task. routines performed by pilots,and military operations performed by soldiers(Rohrer Pashler,2007).In a meta-analysis of over 50 studies on overlearning,Driskell,Willis,and Copper(1992)found that overlearning had a significant and positive effect on long-term retention for both physical and cognitive tasks.In sum,overlearning increases the length of time training material is retained:thus,if training involves learning a skill,then employ- ees should be asked to demonstrate the skill even after they have reached some initial mastery level. The extent to which the task trained is similar to the task required on the job is referred to delity Extent鱼whih as fidelity.It is important that training tasks have fidelity so that the extra time and expense of he task trained is sim白年o overlearning in training can directly benefit performance on the job.To best develop the three the tak required on the job types of learning outcomes (cognitive,skill-based,and affective)described by Kraiger and col. Physical fidelity Extent leagues (1993),training tasks should have both physical and psychological fidelity.Physical which the trainin网ak fidelity refers to the extent to which the training task mirrors the physical features of the actual s the physical features of the tank performed on task.For example,airplane simulator tasks possess physical fidelity when they accurately rep. the job resent the layout of the cockpit as well as the motion that occurs in actual aircraft(Goldstein Ford,2002).Psychological fidelity refers to the extent to which the training task helps train- Pychological fidelity ees to develop the KSAOs that are necessary to perform the job.A training program that tak helps trainees to emphasizes the development of critical KSAOs identified in a task analysis would possess high psychological fidelity.For example,if lieutenant candidates in a fire department are trained ,and other (and tested)in a simulated setting where they have to respond to a fire by actually speaking dharacterastio (540) the directions and orders they would give,this setting would elicit their communication to perform the job Scanned by CamScannerScanned by CamScanner