Module 3 · Skills, Memory and Transfer · Lesson 1 of 5
Lesson 3.1Knowledge and Skill
Knowledge is what a learner can say. Skill is what a learner can do, often without being able to say how.
Three phases of knowledge
- Memorization
Facts and steps. Lets the learner start quickly, but can't answer questions it doesn't cover. - Understanding
Facts organized into a mental model of how something works. Easier to adapt, communicate and remember. - Application
Using that understanding to solve problems and make decisions.
Concept learning groups things that share attributes into categories. A schema is a cognitive framework that organizes information and primes the learner for what to expect, which is why an experienced pilot can copy a long clearance: they know it holds five key pieces of information. Schemas help, but they can also make it hard to accept information that doesn't fit.
Three stages of skill acquisition
| Stage | What you see | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| Cognitive | Memorized steps, all attention used, may fixate on one thing. Distractions make performance fall apart. | A clear, step-by-step demonstration. |
| Associative | Practice links steps to outcomes. The learner checks progress and adjusts, and copes a little better with distractions. | Practice. Specific comments now mean more than long explanations did. |
| Automatic response | Rapid and smooth, few small adjustments, can talk while doing it. May not be able to explain the steps: "I have a feel for it." | Keep it sharp with varied practice. |
Knowledge of results matters as much when the learner is right as when they're wrong. Tell them as soon as possible after the performance, and don't let them practice mistakes (FI.I.B.K9b). It's harder to unlearn a mistake than to learn correctly the first time.
Module 3 · Skills, Memory and Transfer · Lesson 2 of 5
Lesson 3.2Practice and Plateaus
Progress depends on practice, but how practice is structured decides how long it lasts.
The power law of practice says the speed of performing a task improves as a power of the number of times it's performed. Progress is fast at first and slows as the learner gets better. Eventually the curve levels off: a learning plateau.
A plateau doesn't mean learning has stopped. The learner may have reached a capability limit, be consolidating skills, have lost interest, or need a better method. It is normal and temporary, so tell the learner before it happens (FI.I.B.K9d). Help by:
- Moving the learner to a different part of the curriculum and giving the task a break.
- Explaining the lesson better: the reason for it and how it applies.
- Not causing it yourself. Instructors can bring on a plateau by over-practice.
Three types of practice
Aimed at a goal
Practice specific areas for improvement and get specific, brief feedback on the gap between performance and goal. Avoid distractions.
Same drill, over and over
Better short-term performance, poorer long-term learning. Fools the learner and the instructor into thinking the skill is learned.
Skills mixed up
Harder in the session but better retention, because the learner retrieves steps from long-term memory and sees how tasks differ.
Blocked or random practice?
InteractiveIllustrative values showing the direction of the research the handbook describes: blocked practice scores better during the session, random practice does better on a test the next day.
Practice length matters too. A beginner reaches a point where more practice is unproductive or harmful: errors increase and motivation drops. Experienced learners can handle longer sessions.
Evaluation versus critique: early in skill learning, practical suggestions are worth more to the learner than a grade. Early evaluation is mostly teacher oriented: a check on teaching effectiveness and a way to find problem areas. Watch the practice, give constructive criticism, compliment what was done right, and let the learner critique their own performance.
Overlearning is continued study after initial proficiency. It can make knowledge streamlined, almost a skill, but it has a downside: a checklist recited so automatically that it's decoupled from the actions it should trigger, or a pilot who can read their own airplane's weight and balance charts but struggles with an unfamiliar one.
Module 3 · Skills, Memory and Transfer · Lesson 3 of 5
Lesson 3.3Attention and Errors
Attention is limited. Where it goes, and what happens when it slips, decides most errors.
Attention is a single channel
Multitasking is mostly a myth. Focused vision covers only a few degrees, and people can't follow two conversations at once. What looks like doing several things is really attention switching, and the danger is that a deferred task gets forgotten. Under heavy workload, people tend to lower their standards or fall into reacting to each task without a plan. So before combining tasks, make sure the learner can do each one reasonably well in isolation.
| Problem | What it is | What the instructor does |
|---|---|---|
| Distraction | An unexpected event that momentarily diverts attention. The learner decides whether it needs action, then returns to the task. | Use realistic distractions on purpose so learners practice managing them (Module 7). |
| Interruption | The learner voluntarily suspends one task to do another. A significant source of errors, like picking a checklist back up at the wrong step. | Teach a procedure for interruptions: mark the place, restart the checklist step. |
| Fixation | Absorbed in one task to the exclusion of others, like a new instrument pilot staring at one gauge while the rest drift. | Often a sign the task needs more practice in isolation. |
| Inattention | Not attending to something that needs attention. Humans are poor passive monitors, and the more reliable the automation, the worse they monitor it. | Alert the learner to the problem and build habits that keep attention moving. |
To spot fixation or inattention, follow where the learner looks. A gaze that stays on one instrument suggests fixation; one that never reaches the engine instruments suggests inattention. Looking isn't the same as seeing, so confirm with questions (FI.I.B.K12).
Name the attention problem
InteractiveWhat's happening to the learner's attention?
On a practice approach, the learner chases the localizer needle while the altitude drifts 300 feet low.
Tower calls with traffic in the middle of the before-landing checklist. Afterward the learner resumes two items later and never puts the gear down.
With the autopilot flying, the learner never notices the oil pressure creeping down over 20 minutes.
A bird flashes past the windscreen. The learner glances, decides it's no threat and goes back to the turn.
Kinds of errors
An error of action
Planning to do one thing and doing something else: forgetting a step, mixing up similar things, or reverting to habit when the routine changes. Time pressure causes slips (the speed-accuracy tradeoff).
An error of thought
Planning to do the wrong thing and succeeding. Caused by gaps or misconceptions in understanding, or an expert putting a case in the wrong category.
Slip or mistake?
InteractiveClassify the error.
Assigned runway 12 today after many days of runway 30, Beverly turns to enter the pattern for 30 out of habit.
A learner with an overly simple understanding of weather plans a flight into conditions he didn't expect.
Rushing to make a slot time, the learner forgets to switch on the fuel pump for takeoff.
An experienced pilot ignores a traffic alert on final because alerts near home are usually aircraft on the ground. This time it's real.
The learner grabs the POH for the 172S instead of the 172R and reads the wrong number.
Reducing error
- 1Learning and practicing. The first line of defense.
- 2Taking time. Work at a comfortable pace.
- 3Checking for errors. Look actively for evidence of them.
- 4Using reminders. Checklists, heading bugs, notepads.
- 5Developing routines. Standardized procedures.
- 6Raising awareness. In conditions where errors are known to happen.
Practice error recovery for common or serious errors, like the lost procedure. And use errors as a learning resource: ask why it happened and what would prevent it, without letting the learner practice doing the wrong thing. Watch for the natural tendency to explain errors away as one-time events. Recognizing and correcting learner errors is a risk management element of the ACS (FI.I.B.R3), and so is spotting conditions that undermine learning (FI.I.B.S2).
Module 3 · Skills, Memory and Transfer · Lesson 4 of 5
Lesson 3.4Memory and Forgetting
Encode, store, retrieve. Most forgetting is a failure to retrieve, not a loss.
| Part | How it works | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Sensory memory | Receives stimuli and keeps what the person considers relevant. Set to pass certain stimuli on immediately (precoding), like a fire alarm. | Seconds. |
| Short-term memory | Holds information for immediate use. Rehearsal and coding (chunking) help. Includes iconic, acoustic and working memory. | About 30 seconds and about 7 chunks. Coding takes 5 to 10 seconds; interrupt it and the information is lost. |
| Long-term memory | Relatively permanent, organized in schemas. Information gets here when it has significance, is repeated, or is attached to something significant. | A reconstruction, not a pure recording. |
Seven chunks
InteractiveA clearance has five predictable parts: clearance limit, route, altitude, frequency, transponder. Knowing that is a schema, and it lets the pilot code the clearance into chunks.
Frequency and recency of use
| Use | Retrieval |
|---|---|
| Frequency and recency | Easy and quick. The ideal. |
| Frequency only | Vulnerable. Needs recent rehearsal to refresh it. |
| Recency only | Particularly vulnerable: newly learned, hard to tell from throwaway information. Needs regular rehearsal to build frequency. |
Why people forget
- Retrieval failure: knowing it but not being able to recall it (tip of the tongue), or never encoding it well (failure to store).
- Fading: information not used for a long time decays.
- Interference: other experiences overshadow it. Similar material interferes more than dissimilar material, and poorly learned material suffers most.
- Repression or suppression: a memory pushed out of reach because of the feelings attached. Repression is unconscious; suppression is conscious.
Which theory of forgetting?
InteractiveWhy can't the learner remember?
Months after learning the PA-28's numbers, a learner who now flies the 172 every day mixes up the two airplanes' speeds.
A pilot who hasn't looked at light gun signals since the private checkride can't recall them.
After a frightening go-around, the learner deliberately avoids thinking about it and can't recall the details.
The learner knows the answer, can almost say it, but it won't come.
Helping learners remember
Teach thoroughly and with meaning: rote learning is superficial and isn't retained (FI.I.B.K15). Five principles help:
- Praise stimulates remembering.
- Recall is promoted by association.
- Favorable attitudes aid retention. People remember what they want to know.
- Learning with all senses is most effective.
- Meaningful repetition aids recall. Three or four repetitions give the maximum effect; after that, the rate of learning falls off.
In a lecture, retention drops after the first 10 to 15 minutes and picks up in the last 5 to 10. Passive listeners keep about 5 percent over 24 hours. Mnemonics (acronyms, acrostics, rhymes, chaining) help with information that must be recalled in order.
Module 3 · Skills, Memory and Transfer · Lesson 5 of 5
Lesson 3.5Transfer and Habit
Learning in one context helps or hinders learning in the next.
Transfer of learning is applying knowledge or procedures learned in one context to a new one. Positive transfer happens when learning skill A helps learn skill B; negative transfer when A hinders B. Near transfer is to a closely related setting, far transfer to a different one or a new problem with the same structure, and generativity is coming up with novel solutions on one's own.
Positive or negative transfer?
InteractiveDoes the earlier learning help or hinder?
Practicing slow flight helps Beverly learn short-field landings.
Years of airplane approaches make a pilot's first helicopter approaches harder.
A learner who drove a manual car finds the throttle-and-rudder coordination of taxiing natural.
A tailwheel learner keeps holding the yoke back on the takeoff roll out of nosewheel habit.
Planning for transfer
- Plan for transfer as a primary objective.
- Make sure learners know the information applies elsewhere, and prepare them to look for applications.
- Maintain high-order learning standards; overlearning may be appropriate.
- Avoid unnecessary rote learning, which doesn't foster transfer.
- Provide meaningful learning experiences that build confidence.
- Use materials that help form valid concepts and generalizations.
Habit formation and the building block concept
Because of primacy, correct habit patterns from the start are essential. It's much easier to build good habits than to correct bad ones later. Aviation training follows a building block concept: new learning sits on a solid foundation of earlier learning, so the base for future learning keeps growing.
The deeper the processing, the better the memory.
Learners who think deeply about what they've learned, by explaining it, connecting it and using it, are more likely to retrieve it later.
Module 3 · Skills, Memory and Transfer · Knowledge Check
Knowledge CheckModule 3 Knowledge Check
10 questions in the style of the FOI knowledge test, each with the reason. Pass mark: 80% (8 of 10).