Learning to be a Pilot

The ideal, and one which airlines have been chasing for some time, is the ability to identify applicants who have the appropriate motivation and abilities to virtually guarantee successful flight training. It may be possible also to predict future advancement to command positions. An added bonus would be if we could provide special training or advice for those who were identified as deficient in some way.

Successful Learning

Recent research into student learning enables us to see successful learning as a result of the factors that exist before, during and after the learning. For example, the prior variables include personality, experience, knowledge and home background. During the learning process, the variables come into play, determining how the individual processes the information provided. Finally, there are the variables associated with the learning product: the outcomes, examination performance, self concept and satisfaction. If this seems quite a complex situation for flight instructors to handle, it may be some consolation to know that it isn’t all that easy for researchers either.

Our preference therefore was to concentrate on the process variables: how student pilots deal with the information and experiences provided in ab initio flight training programs. In general terms, working with students in schools or colleges, other researchers have been able to identify different student motives and learning styles that go with them. These three approaches, their associated motives and strategies, are shown in Table 1.

Learning Strategies

In brief, students adopt either a surface (or rote learning) strategy to meet the minimum requirements for them to gain a pilot licence; a deep interest to learn all they can about flying; or they aim to get the highest possible results in their tests by an achieving strategy. The important contribution to flight instruction is the difference between the last two groups: the deep and achieving categories. In their recognition of the ‘right stuff’, there is a real danger that flight instructors could confuse the two. If one looks only at results, one can miss the important differences in why and how student pilots get them.

There are many questions raised by this view of flight instruction, however. Do better pilots come from the group having an organised approach, seeking to make meaning from what is pre scribed and reading, listening and discussing as widely as possible? Is a deep approach necessary for learning procedures, checklists and performance data? It is quite conceivable that surface learning may be more appropriate for some aspects of learning to fly. For example, many trainees use memory aids (or mnemonics) for routine check lists and procedures.

The Research

As a starting point, a study has been undertaken with 62 trainee pilots at an integrated commercial flying school. Information was collected to enable each student to be scored on hours to solo and ten ground school results (flight instruments; aerodynamics; engines; meteorology; aircraft performance; navigation; avionics; aviation medicine; load control, and flight planning). These subject titles were written on cards given to expert ground school instructors who were asked to rank them according to order of difficulty. This procedure resulted in the subjects being allocated to ‘easy’, ‘moderate’ and ‘difficult’ categories. Each student was thus able to be scored on a total ground school result and a result for ‘easy’, ‘moderate’ and ‘difficult’ subjects. A specially designed questionnaire was completed by the students. This 42 item questionnaire assesses both motives and strategies in learning. The questions consisted of statements (such as, “I have a strong desire to excel in my studies”) requiring students to indicate, on a five point scale, their degree of acceptance of the statement. A higher score was taken to indicate that the statement was more true of the respondent.

The Results

The results provided three motive scores and three strategy scores (Deep, Surface, and Achieving) in each case. It was thus possible to link the results with hours to solo plus ground school scores. Correlations were established between Surface Approach scores and all ground school scores. The more sur ace, rote learning oriented a trainee was, the lower the ground school scores. Perhaps more importantly, even for the ground school topics which were considered relatively easy to learn (Aviation Medicine, Flight Instruments, Avionics), surface learners performed worst.

On the other hand, trainee pilots who had a Deep Approach to learning (being personally motivated, wanting to inquire, attempting to read widely and understand the ideas) were not adversely affected in ground school learning. Indeed, the more difficult the topics became, the higher the correlations with the Deep score. So for topics such as Navigation, Flight Planning and Performance, being ‘Deep’ would appear to be helpful. For flight instructors, the implication is to encourage understanding and enquiry learning in these areas. Surprisingly, being organised and wanting to be competitive in learning does not seem to play much of a role here. The Achieving Approach scores were not related with any of the ground school scores. However, when the Achieving dimension (wanting good grades, competition, trying to do all the prescribed work, keeping good notes) is added to the Surface dimension (to make Surface Achieving), some of the harmful effects of being ‘surface’ seem to be removed for the ground school scores. Being organised, then, is important in overcoming some of the disadvantages of being surface oriented. This suggests that providing organisation may be a starting point for training surface-oriented ab initio pilots to be more effect in their studying. This organisation can come from study timetable’s hints on summarising and study techniques.

We think our most interesting finding is from the hours-to-solo data. A low time to solo is related to a high score on the deep measure. The correlations between hours-to-solo and Deep Approach and Deep Achieving scores show that trainees who approach their learning in a deep way take significantly less time to take control of the aircraft without an instructor. In contrast to the ground school findings, being surface in orientation seems not to be helpful nor harmful in going solo.

Want to Participate?

Further research is continuing, including RAAF and commercial pilots. If you and your organisation wish to participate, we are happy to provide a summary of the results in return for your assistance. Please contact either of the authors at the University of Newcastle, NSW, 2308 (Phone (049) 68 0401).

• Dr Phil Moore is Head, Department of Education and Associate Professor Ross Telfer is Director, Institute of Aviation, at the University of Newcastle.