The Role of Verbal Control in Complex Skill Training.

Abstract : The role of verbal control during the initial stages of acquiring complex perceptual-motor skills has been frequently emphasized by instructional psychologists. Although the learning of verbal rules, or cognitive pretraining, is clearly at the heart of systematic training, the term rule has not been defined in a manner that either avoids unsubstantiated generalization or clearly specified the manner in which the learning of rules eventuates in skilled performance. A framework for viewing methods that emphasize verbal control in training complex skills is provided, along with a description of different uses of the term rule as it relates to skill acquisition. Implications of this framework for subsequent training research are discussed, suggesting methods for empirically verifying the idea that excessive reliance on verbal control approaches may actually impede the trainee's progress in attaining certain skills, such as piloting technique. In short, the primary objective of the proposed research program is to develop and validate efficient methods for establishing skills that are difficult to train using state-of-the art instructional design technologies. (Author)