Simulator-Based Learning: Achieving Performance Improvement Independent of Instructors

The Utah Department of Public Safety (UDPS) implemented a new driver training methodology in 2005, which they have used to train over 950 law-enforcement personnel over the past two years (2005–2006). The new methodology uses driving simulators for whole task practice and for measuring driver-performance. It places simulator-based practice between initial classroom instruction and test-track driver training. Prior analyses of the data collected for 355 drivers in the first year demonstrated that UDPS had successfully achieved: (1) objective measures of driver performance to establish pass/fail criteria, (2) effective motivation for drivers to improve their own performance, and (3) measures of the overall effectiveness of the training process. Summary reports of the first year of data collected at UDPS demonstrated: (1) SAS mitigation levels below the occurrence of test-track discomfort, and (2) a 67% reduction in risk for collisions by reduction of critical errors. The above success led to expanding the training to 598 new trainees in the second year. This paper reviews new driver performance data collected during 2006. Two additional trainers participated in that process. Analysis of this new data not only confirms the first year’s analysis, but newly establishes that: (1) improvement in driver performance is independent of the trainer(s), and (2) training benefit is a function of the sequence and number of exercises.