Optimizing the Long Term Retention of Skills: Structural and Analytic Approaches to Skill Maintenance
Abstract
The program described in this research note seeks to identify characteristics of knowledge and skills which are most resistant to decay due to disuse. The program is divided into analytic and structural approaches. The first line of research for investigating skills retention using the analytic approach investigates laboratory analogues to the component skills of electronic technicians. The second approach investigates parallel natural skills learned by former college students. We have developed five laboratory methodologies, and have completed the preliminary testing for each of them. We have also identified four natural skills, designed the initial questionnaires and tests, and collected preliminary data for all of them. For the structural approach, we have designed an experimental paradigm which allows us to assess the detailed encoding of new knowledge at presentation and after a delay, using verbal report techniques and chronometric measurement of retrieval components. A preliminary study of retention of vocabulary items has been completed within this paradigm. Keywords: Cognition, Memory, Skills, Personnel retention.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA187002
Entities
People
- Alice F. Healy
- K. A. Ericsson
- Lyle E. Bourne Jr.
Organizations
- University of Colorado Boulder