Utilizing Bandura in Military/Police Classes

                  Author: Odhinn Kohout

  Albert Bandura (1925- ), a psychologist who states that through observation of another person’s behavior and modeling his/her behavior from this observational process the student will learn the desired skill-set and or acquire knowledge. I have found that this model yields great results when I am looking specifically for a student to master a physical skill-set. I will first demonstrate a technique which requires the students "Attention" from Bandura's first category. I expect the student to reproduce the technique with his training partner through repetitions as I observe them. Once each new skill has been demonstrated correctly ("Reproduction") I will add a stress inoculated aspect or open scenario based training component so that I know there has been proper "Retention" as defined Bandura.  The “Motivation” bridge is for the most part self-fulfilling in Military/Police training. Learning the skill may not other impact the student but also his partner and sometimes the public. To work well within a platoon or team based structure also aids in motivational thinking.

A current strategy in which I employ Bandura’s theories is on advanced training courses with the use of a guest Instructor or subject matter expert (SME) to assist me in the delivery of the material. Bandura’s learning model is in reverse, as the students are excited and motivated by the SME and this sets the tone for training. I have found the students to be attentive to what is being taught as well as performing to a high level for the retention/reproduction aspect of training to impress the SME and each other.

Providing a detailed course breakdown to the students of the curriculum and breakdown what will be expected from them to succeed/pass the course. This may not work for all types of learners but the sink or swim mindset is a great motivator for Military/Police. To ensure the retention reproduction portion, the instructor could set up a very simple CCTV setup in which the groups of students could watch each other in scenario based training on a monitor. The setup would consist of a video camera recording the scenario in which the student reproduced the learned while in another room the rest of the group observed the results in real time on a monitor. This method would produce a “debrief” automatically with each watched scenario culminating in a final group discussion at the end to go over all the results.