Transfer of Training Effectiveness of a Personal Computer Aviation Training Device

Abstract

The training effectiveness of personal computer aviation training devices (PCATDs) has received only limited testing. In the experiment reported here, a commercially available PCATD was evaluated for its transfer effectiveness for teaching of instrument flight skills. Students from the beginning and advanced instrument courses at the University of Illinois were trained to criterion in the PCATD on a wide range of Requests for reprints should be sent to tasks and were then retrained to criterion in the airplane on the same tasks. Other students were trained to criterion on the same tasks only in the airplane. Comparisons of trials to criterion in the airplane for the 2 groups, their times to complete each flight lesson in the airplane, and their course completion times were used to assess the training effectiveness of the PCATD. Transfer savings were generally positive and substantial when new tasks were introduced but low when tasks already learned inprevious lessons were reviewed. A comparison of course completion times showed savings of 3.9 hr in the airplane for the PCATD group compared to the airplane-control group.The financial resources required for flight training impose a substantial burden on the aviation community. The potential to reduce costs through the use of inexpensive but effective training devices has added an incentive for flight training departments to conduct more training with ground-based flight training devices. The cost of currently certificated generic flight training devices is out of reach of many flight schools, but personal computer aviation training devices (PCATDs) offer a low-cost alternative. Software, computer hardware, and a flight-control system can be acquired for an outlay of less than $10,000 (K. W. Williams, 1994).PCATDs have generated considerable enthusiasm within the aviation industry Percent transfer is a commonly used measure that summarizes the savings of time (or trials) in airplane training that can be achieved by use of a ground trainer. The time (or trials) required in the ground trainer to achieve those savings is not a factor in determining the percent transfer. The transfer effectiveness ratio (TER) accounts for the amount of prior training in the ground trainer by specifying the time (or trials) saved in the airplane as a function of the time (or trials) in the training device (Roscoe, 197 1 ; A. C. Williams & Flexman, 1949). Both of these indexes are useful measures of transfer, but it should be recognized that, with a typical negatively accelerated learning curve, additional training in the ground trainer will increase the percent transfer but decrease the TER. Furthermore, Roscoe (1971) clearly demonstrated that both the cumulative (average) TER and incremental transfer effectiveness ratio (ITER) are negatively decelerated functions. Therefore, successive increments of training in the ground trainer will decrease the average TER and the ITER. To measure cost-effectiveness of a ground training device, incremental transfer functions need to be determined. Th...

Eye Movements Data Processing for Ab Initio Military Pilot Training

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