|
Operator aptitude
More and more people are coming to recognize that becoming a
heavy equipment operator also requires human abilities which
cannot be taught; just like musical ability,
you either have them or you don't.
Many people call this aptitude (sometimes "mechanical aptitude").
And studies show that in typical vocational training programs,
up to 30% of trainees lack the pre-requisite abilities
to become truly proficient operators of modern heavy equipment.
Natural abilities
Industrial psychologists have identified the three kinds
of natural abilities important for operating heavy equipment:
- various "psycho-motor" abilities
associated with manual dexterity,
i.e. moving both arms/hands and many fingers at the same time
- a "sensory/perceptual" ability associated with depth perception,
i.e. seeing things at a distance and
knowing what's in front and what's behind
- a "cognitive" ability associated with thinking
about spatial orientation,
i.e. keeping track of where you are in a changing work environment
Why differences in natural abilities are important
Other research indicates that learning new skills
and creating muscle memory
is a three part process.
In stage 1, differences in learning correlate with differences in general
intelligence. That's because the focus is on listening and thinking
carefully about instruction, to get the "what to do" and
"how to do it" right.
Later, in stage 2, differences in learning
are largely due to differences in perceptual/cognitive abilities.
Here the focus is on learning to anticipate the consequences
of your operator inputs to achieve the required results.
Finally, in stage 3, differences in learning
are dominated by differences in psycho-motor abilities, where
gestures are made with increasing ease.
This means that
once training ends, how skilled you become
depends upon your perceptual, cognitive, and psycho-motor abilities.
And that's why evaluating human abilities is so essential
for predicting eventual on-the-job performance of new operators!
How to evaluate differences in natural abilities
But measuring differences in those natural abilities, is difficult to do
in a reliable and meaningful way.
To be sure, industrial psychologists have invented all kinds of tests
with peg-boards and paper folding (to name just two examples)
to help out,
but these are just "surrogates" or "proxies" for the real deal
because they are designed to reproduce,
in highly simplified ways, what operating modern heavy equipment
is all about.
As a result, trainers have continued to rely on
observing people at work at the controls of real machines,
with all of the associated costs and potential danger.
Now simulation technology from Simlog
can help out!
For example, what better way to double check that someone has what it takes
to become a competent operator of meachnized forestry equipment
than to spend time at Simlog's
forestry machine simulator?
Indeed, we have
documented evidence that
just half a day
of simulator-based training is enough to reliably identify those
training candidates who lack the necessary human abilities to
become highly skilled operators at the controls.
So use your training budget as wisely as you can, and to look to us
for help with simulator-based pre-screening (and training).
Questions? Just contact Simlog!
|
