There has been a considerable amount of discussion in recent years on how police trainers can enhance the training we deliver using principles and concepts grounded in, and informed by the research on teaching, training, coaching, and learning. Those principles and concepts include:
- Reflection
- Active / Effortful Retrieval
- Spaced Repetition
- Desirable Difficulties
- Interleaving (Verbal Skills, Physical Skills, Law, Policy, Tactics, Decision Making, Articulation)
- Contextually Relevant Training Environment / Specificity / Representative Learning Environments
- The Appropriate Level of Challenge for the Learner
- An Ecological Training Environment
- A Non-Linear Approach to Training
Forward thinking trainers are striving figure out how to apply these principles guided by a vast body of academic literature, some research papers which have explored the application of some of these principles in specific areas of police training, and work being done in the world of athletics.
But what if there was a framework, a training model, that had been developed specifically in police training and tested over the last 7 years? It seems to me that would be extremely helpful for police trainers in North America who are struggling with figuring out how to apply all these principles and concepts, without getting trapped in dogmatic debates on the best pedagogical model. I believe that framework exists and is being used in England and Wales.
I recently uploaded interview #482 to the Members Contents area of The Excellence in Training Academy. This was interview Chris Cushion PhD where shared insights into – Exploring Scenario Based Training as a Model for Enhancing Learning, Retention, and Transfer. This was the third interview I have done with Chris for The Excellence in Training Academy. In interview the first interview (#393) we discussed his paper titled Changing Police Personal Safety Training Using Scenario-Based-Training. In the second interview with Chis (#438) we discussed – Coaching is Not One Size Fits All So Follow Evidence Informed Principles. While I generally do not share the links to The Excellence in Training Academy interviews outside the membership site, I believe this is important information to get out to the greater police training community so links to all three of those interviews are included at the end of this post.
The latest interview builds on our first interview and continues to explore the concept of scenario-based training as a training model. While we talk about it mainly from the perspective of teaching control tactics the principles could be applied to any area of instruction and as Chris mentions briefly near the end of the conversation, in his version of an “ideal world for an academy syllabus” the entire syllabus would be taught using scenario-based training. When Chris is talking about scenario-based training, he is not talking about the large-scale, high-fidelity scenarios that we often associate with the term, although we can work up to those. These are brief scenarios, each of which represents a small slice of real-world officers have to function in.
The more I reflect on the conversations with Chris, both the recorded interviews and the pre and post interview conversations, the more I believe this is a really solid framework that trainers in North America can use to start making changes to their training which implement many, if not all of the principles and concepts we now talk about for effective training to make learning stick.
Every scenario covers Radio Call to Resolution with each scenario representing a slice of the real world. The scenarios increase in complexity as the training progresses. As you get to new challenges where the learners may get stuck on how to solve the new challenge, you can pause the scenario and let the learners explore solutions through some drills that allow them to work through it on their own guided by some skilled and well-timed questions and guidance from the trainers.
While many in the police training community are struggling to figure out how we can begin to implement the of the principles of effective training, coaching, teaching, and learning into our training models, Chris Cushion has seven years of experience and observation with implementing this model with the police in England and Wales. Obviously in North America there is a need to add elements into the scenarios that involve the use and retention of firearms by the police as the scenarios evolve throughout training.
As Chris mentioned in the latest interview, and in our discussion post interview, it can be hard to create a deep understanding of this type of training in an interview. Trainers ideally need to experience it, as it is an experiential model. If you work for a progressive minded agency or academy and are looking to enhance your current training using research grounded and informed principles to help optimize both your training time and the performance of your people in the field, I would encourage you to reach out to Chris through LinkedIn or by e-mail (c.cushion@lboro.ac.uk) and look at bringing him over to run a five day course for your trainers so they can experience this model. You could even collaborate with a few agencies in your area to help share the costs.
Chris Cushion PhD – Coaching Is Not One Size Fits All So Follow Evidence Informed Principles mp3
Take care.
Brian Willis
Winning Mind Training – Providing practical training to law enforcement professionals in the areas of instructor development, Performance Enhancement Imagery, leadership and mindset.
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