Individual and Team Skill Decay

Skill and knowledge retention is a major issue and concern in learning and skill acquisition, especially when trained or acquired skills (or knowledge) are needed after long periods of nonuse. The goal of this book is to summarize and advance the thinking of critical issues related to skill retention and decay in the context of individual and team training on complex tasks. This volume will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of industrial and organizational psychology, human factors, organizational behavior, and human resources management.

Winfred Arthur, Jr. is Full Professor of Psychology and Management at Texas A&M University. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Association of Psychological Science, and the American Psychological Association. He is past Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology and currently serves on its editorial board along with Personnel Psychology, and Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice as well. His research interests are in human performance; training development, design, implementation, and evaluation; team selection and training; acquisition and retention of complex skills; testing, selection, and validation; models of job performance; personnel psychology; and meta-analysis. Eric Anthony Day is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Oklahoma where he is part of the Doctoral program in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. His research interests primarily fall in the traditional areas of personnel psychology and human resources management, including personnel assessment, selection, and training and development. Much of his research involves the study of complex skill acquisition with emphases on individual differences, cognitive and social processes, expert-novice differences, decay and adaptability, and team-based training. Winston "Wink" Bennett, Jr. is a Senior Research Psychologist and Technical Advisor for continuous learning and performance assessment research with the Air Force Research Laboratory Human Effectiveness Directorate in Dayton, Ohio. He is a Fellow of the Air Force Research Laboratory and is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. He has published over 90 research articles, textbooks, chapters, and technical reports in the Human Factors, Aviation, Industrial and Organizational Psychology literatures. Antoinette M. Portrey is a Senior Scientist with L-3 Communications Link Simulation and Training. She leads her team in warfighter training research at the Air Force Research Laboratory Human Effectiveness Directorate, Warfighter Readiness Research Division in Dayton, Ohio. Her team facilitates the research, design, development, and integration of continuous learning training methodologies and technologies to be used with interactive, multi-fidelity, immersive training environments. Specialty areas include: human performance measurement; individual, team, and unit training effectiveness; training systems assessment; and integrated learning management technologies.

Section 1: Introduction and Foundational Issues 1. Introduction Winfred Arthur, Jr., Eric Anthony Day 2. Remembering and forgetting: From the laboratory looking out Scott D. Gronlund, Daniel R. Kimball 3. Complex command-and-control simulation task performance following periods of nonuse Anton J. Villado, Eric Anthony Day, Winfred Arthur, Jr., Paul R. Boatman, Vanessa Kowollik, Alok Bhupatkar, Winston Bennett, Jr. 4. Factors influencing knowledge and skill decay in organizational training: A meta-analysis Xiaoqian Wang, Eric Anthony Day, Vanessa Kowollik, Matthew J. Schuelke, Michael G. Hughes 5. Variance as an indicator of training effectiveness in the context of complex skill acquisition, retention, and transfer Ira Schurig, Winfred Arthur, Jr., Eric Anthony Day, David J. Woehr Section 2: Individual Skill Retention and Transfer on Complex Task with Extended nonuse Intervals, the Factors that Influence it, and how Skill Decay can be Mitigated 6. Improving military readiness: Evaluation and prediction of performance to optimize training effectiveness Tiffany S. Jastrzembski, Antoinette M. Portrey, Brian T. Schreiber, Kevin A. Gluck 7. Training for efficient, durable, and flexible performance in the military Alice F. Healy, Erica L. Wohldmann, James A. Kole, Vivian I. Schneider, Kathleen M. Shea, Lyle E. Bourne, Jr. 8. Complex movement sequences: How the sequence structure affects learning and transfer Charles H. Shea, Attila J. Kovacs 9. Use of, reaction to, and efficacy of observation rehearsal training: Enhancing skill retention on a complex command-and-control simulation task Anton J. Villado, Eric Anthony Day, Winfred Arthur, Jr., Paul R. Boatman, Vanessa Kowollik, Alok Bhupatkar, Winston Bennett, Jr. 10. Skill decay, re-acquisition training and transfer studies in the Swedish Air Force: A retrospective review Erland Svensson, Maud Angelborg-Thanderz, Jonathan Borgvall, Martin Castor 11. Relating individual differences in ability, personality, and motivation to the retention and transfer of skill on a complex command-and-control simulation task Eric Anthony Day, Winfred Arthur, Jr., Anton J. Villado, Paul R. Boatman, Vanessa Kowollik, Alok Bhupatkar, Winston Bennett, Jr. 12. Individual difference variables as predictors of error during multitasking training Elizabeth M. Poposki, Frederick L. Oswald Section 3: Skill Decay and Retention at the Team Level 13. A comparative investigation of individual and team skill retention and transfer on a complex command-and-control simulation task Winfred Arthur, Jr., Eric Anthony Day, Anton J. Villado, Ryan M. Glaze, Matthew J. Schuelke, Paul R. Boatman, Vanessa Kowollik, Xiaoqian Wang, Winston Bennett, Jr. 14. Retention of team coordination skill Nancy J. Cooke, Jamie C. Gorman, Jasmine Duran, Christopher Myers, Dee Andrews 15. Team performance decay: Why does it happen and how to avoid it? Deborah DiazGranados, Elizabeth Lazzara, Rebecca Lyons, Samuel R. Wooten, Eduardo Salas Section 4: Summary 16. A Look aFarr (1987): The Past, Present, and Future of Applied Skill Decay Research Winfred Arthur, Jr., Eric Anthony Day