Making Skills A New Habit
By webmaster at 23 November, 2006, 3:22 pm
Making new skills into a habit takes time and practice. How much time depends on the learner? Let’s assume that we have two individuals of equal knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA’s). One of them has a higher level of aptitude than the other. It can be argued that the one with the higher aptitude will make the new skill a habit at a much faster rate than the one with lower aptitude. Both have the same level of KSA’s, but one has the ability to comprehend the new knowledge and apply it to a new situation much faster. The one with the lower aptitude has to exert more effort in making a new skill a habit, in terms of more practice.
Self-regulation is a concept that refers to how individuals are able to develop their skills for checking their performance. Individuals with higher aptitude have higher self-regulation ability. Therefore, they have the ability to rapidly check their work, accurately judge its difficulty, apportion their time, assess their progress, and predict their outcomes. This does not mean that individuals with lower aptitude don’t have self-regulation ability; it means that it takes them longer to go through the learning process. Individuals with lower self-regulation ability may be able to raise this level over time.
Before beginning a training program, trainers should understand the learning styles of their trainees. The understanding of learning styles include the trainees’ aptitude levels, self-efficacy levels, and self-regulation levels. Information on these learning styles should be acquired during the needs analysis phase, to be better able to customize the training program to the individual needs of the trainees’. Also, patience is a key skill for trainers. Trainers should use a variety of different models when designing learning experiences. One strategy could be the zone of proximal development, where trainees are taught to perform within their competence range while being helped to realize their performance potential.
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