Assessment of SIMITAR: Status Report One.
Abstract
This report describes progress in evaluating the effectiveness of SIMITAR (Simulation in Training for Advanced Readiness) training technology to improve the performance of Army National Guard (ARNG) brigades. The evaluation focuses first on the 48th Infantry Brigade training at the National Training Center (NTC) in 1996 and second on the 116th Cavalry Brigade at annual training (AT) and home station training. The report also describes the plan for completing the SIMITAR evaluation. SIMITAR involves about 25 interventions (devices, courses, procedures, and strategies) for training numerous ARTEP (Army Training and Evaluation Program) derived tasks. The SIMITAR evaluation involves measuring performance of those tasks in NTC and AT field exercises. Since no ARNG units had recently trained at the NTC, there was no training performance benchmark for the 48th Brigade at NTC 96. However, the fact that some of over 500 tasks considered at NTC 96 are trainable by SIMITAR devices and courses while other tasks are not provides an alternative benchmarking option: performance on tasks not trained by SIMITAR benchmarks the performance of SIMITAR-trained tasks. The NTC training evaluation focuses on large collectives (brigade, battalion) whereas most SIMITAR devices and courses train individuals and small collectives (crew, squad, platoon). Field exercises at AT are better suited for evaluating lower organizational level performance. There is statistical evidence-in addition to users' testimony-that SIMITAR training evaluated so far improves training performance.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA331417
Entities
People
- Greg Pickell
- Jessie Orlansky
- John Metzko
- John Morrison
Organizations
- Institute for Defense Analyses