Technical Report 1037

Practical Thinking: Innovation in Battle

Command Instruction

Jon J. Fallesen, Rex R. Michel,

James W. Lussier, and Julia Pounds

U.S. Army Research Institute

January 1996

mom w

United States Army Research Institute

for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

._ _-,-.n-r-,imn-~''n3,'n 1
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FOR THE BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

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of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel

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1. REPORT DATE

1996, January

2, REPORT TYPE

Final

3. DATES COVERED (from... to)

August 1994-October 1995

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT OR GRANT NUMBER

Practical Thinking: Innovation in Battle Command Instruction 5b. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER

0602785A

6. AUTHOR(S)

Jon J. Fallesen, Rex R. Michel, James W. Lussier, and Julia Pounds

5c. PROJECT NUMBER

A790

5d. TASK NUMBER

mi

5e. WORK UNIT NUMBER

HOI

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U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

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Technical Report 1037

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13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

For a summary, see ARI Research Report Overview ofPractical Thinking Instruction for Battle Command by J. J. Fallesen.

14. ABSTRACT (Maximum 200 words):

Instruction on practical thinking skills was developed and implemented in a Command and General Staff Officers Course on Battle

Command A cognitive skills approach was emphasized as opposed to the traditional procedural models used in other Army education

programs. The cognitive skills were identified from study oftactical planning and decision making, review of civilian cognitive skill

instruction programs, and the application of new models of naturalistic decision making. The program consisted of 12 hours of

instruction and six meetings. Practical thinking consists of creative and critical thinking. It is based on natural ways ofthinking such

as considering multiple perspectives, adapting thinking to situations, looking for hidden assumptions, and following guidelines for

reasoning. This report describes the General Officer tasking that led to this work, the identification ofrequirements for practical

thinking, description ofthe lessons, experience with using the program, and recommendations for further pursuit ofimproving

practical thinking skills.

15. SUBJECT TERMS

Battle command

Reasoning

Cognitive skills

Naturalistic decision making

Human performance

Thinking

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21. RESPONSIBLE PERSON

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Technical Report 1037

Practical Thinking: Innovation in Battle

Command Instruction

Jon J. Fallesen, Rex R. Michel,

James W. Lussier, and Julia Pounds

U.S. Army Research Institute

Fort Leavenworth Research Unit

Stanley M. Halpin, Chief

U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

5001 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia 22333-5600

Office, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel

Department of the Army

January 1996

Army Project Number Personnel Systemsand

2O262785A790 Performance Technology

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
FOREWORD

The Fort Leavenworth Research Unit ofthe U.S. Army Research Institute for the

Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI) performs research on leadership and battle command. A

recent initiative ofthis research is the exploration of cognitive aspects of senior and tactical levels

of command.

In August 1994, the Commander ofthe Training and Doctrine Command, GEN Frederick

M. Franks, Jr., requested that ARI play a pivotal role in developing a course for mid-career Army

officers. He asked that new instruction on thinking, reasoning, and deciding be developed for

inclusion in a course on the art of battle command. In the subsequent 4 months the concept,

content, and integration ofthe instruction into the Command and General Staff Officers Course

were completed by ARI researchers.

The strength ofthe work was the development oftheoretical concepts on cognition and

their transition to the instruction ofthinking in military command and staff positions. The

instruction contrasts with the systematic procedures suggested by classical models of decision

making. Instead of prescribing a single sequence ofsteps, the approach considers how tactical

commanders and staff actually make decisions and solve problems and identifies basic cognitive

skills that support the natural ways ofthinking.

The cognitive-based instruction was incorporated as a subcourse on Practical Thinking for

the Battle Command Course. The Battle Command Course is a 180-hour advanced elective

during Terms II and III that serves as the test bed ofthe Mobile Strike Force (MSF). The course

and the MSF combine the development of new command and staff organizations, weapons, and

information technologies for the 21st century. In its inaugural implementation, Practical Thinking

instruction was given to 73 senior captains and majors. This report documents the background

and rationale for the Practical Thinking instruction, including the lesson descriptions, experience

with them, and recommendations for future instruction.

ZITA M. SIMUTIS EDGAR M. JOHNSON

Deputy Director Director

(Science and Technology)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The achievement ofthe Practical Thinking instruction resulted from the combined efforts

of many individuals. The authors wish to acknowledge first and foremost LTC Harry Mclntosh

from the Leadership Instruction Department at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC).

Harry excelled as an instructor for the subcourse and enthusiastically championed the Practical

Thinking cause in the Battle Command Course and elsewhere in CGSC.

Personnel from ARI Fort Leavenworth made notable contributions. Dr. Joan Silver

developed materials on expertise. Dr. Delane Keene developed formative evaluation materials.

MAJ Lawrence "Clay" Miller served as a sounding board as examples were proposed and

exercises tried. Consortium fellows Sophie Breeskin and Terrill Saxon reviewed cognitive

instruction programs. Dr. Stanley Halpin, our research unit Chief, got the door opened for this

opportunity and saw to it that we were able to focus on getting the curriculum and lessons

developed.

At CGSC, LTC John Burdan, the Battle Command Course author, dealt with our

numerous questions about course and CGSC policy and guidance. Dr. Julia Brandt, Curricula

Development Branch, assisted with the development oftasks, conditions, and standards. BG

Geoffrey D. Miller, the Commander ofthe Mobile Strike Force, was the master of diplomacy at

handling numerous objectives. We thank him, LTG John E. Miller, then Commander Combined

Arms Center; BG Randall L. Rigby, then Deputy Commandant U.S. Army Command and General

Staff College; and COL J. M. Kain, then Director ofCenter for Army Tactics, for allowing the

untried and unproven Practical Thinking approach to be included in their most visible and

prominent course.

VI
PRACTICAL THINKING: INNOVATION IN BATTLE COMMAND INSTRUCTION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Research Requirement:

Current doctrine and instruction for tactical decision making are based on classical

models, but battle commanders do not think or decide according to what those models prescribe.

Emerging findings and new theories of decision making show that the classical models provide

limited and sometimes poor guidance. The current instruction for tactical decision making

procedures is subject to question and new concepts for instruction need to be explored.

In August 1994 General Franks, then Commander U.S. Army Training and Doctrine

Command (TRADOC), concurred with ART study findings that indicated that Army leaders do

not receive instruction in alternate ways of thinking. He requested that ARI develop a course

on thinking based on their findings about actual tactical decision making. LTG John E. Miller,

then Commander Combined Arms Center, and BG Randall L. Rigby, then Deputy Commandant

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, directed that the instruction be included in a

1995 Battle Command Course.

Procedure:

Instead of reverting to classical decision making models and formal reasoning, the basis

for the Practical Thinking instruction was to build on the strengths of how people reason

informally in everyday situations. Important in this approach are the following three points:

1. The knowledge a person has is the basis for thinking; procedures for decision making

(e.g., steps or algorithms) are no short cut or replacement for experience.

2. Cognition, the way thinking is done, can be developed and improved through selfexamination and practice of various cognitive skills.

3. Ways of thinking should be adapted to the situation at hand.

The goal of practical thinking is not to pump more facts into the students. Instead it aims to

extend how students use what they already know to reason about what they need to know.

The ARI instruction departs from traditional approaches that have been grounded in

analysis, probabilities, and formal logic. Traditional theories of decision making assume that

solutions come from repeatable processes and can be clearly graded for goodness. Standard

procedures or formulae are not satisfactory under most real-world circumstances. Naturalistic

studies show that ideal decisions are unrealistic in complex, adversarial situations. Decision

makers should recognize and adapt to the characteristics of the situation.

Practical Thinking was developed as a subcourse in the Command and General Staff

College's (CGSC) elective on Battle Command. This elective is an experimental course

exploring new staff organizations, a force structure using 2015 systems, and information systems

vii
for decision support. The students were organized as the staff and subordinate commanders for

a notional, tactical division called the Mobile Strike Force (MSF). The use of simulation

exercises (SIMEX) creates a realistic setting for tactical planning and execution.

The students had specific problems that they were responsible for working. The Battle

Command Course students were responsible to a real Commander for real problems. These

problems included the determination of staff standard operating procedures; tactics, techniques,

and procedures for 2015 forces; and tactical plans for a series of missions. In addition to these

problems worked during class time and study periods, the students also worked as a surrogate

staff during simulation exercises and Prairie Warrior '95. BG Geoffrey D. Miller commanded

the student contingent of U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marine officers. The 73 students were

divided equally among four ARI and CGSC instructors for the Practical Thinking lessons.

Practical Thinking is a unique component of CGSOC instruction as it focuses on how

individuals think, reason, and decide. It avoids giving recipes for the steps or analytical

procedures for thinking, instead emphasizing a conscious effort to learn, adapt to situations,

manage one's own thinking, be open to other positions, remain flexible in approaches to

problems, apply standards to thinking, and think using overarching viewpoints.

Practical Thinking concepts were identified by establishing a number of propositions

about how we learn and improve our reasoning. The propositions include issues like

1. One's skill at thinking can be improved.

2. Thinking is not always related to high scores on intelligence tests.

3. Reasoning errors can be decreased.

4. Thinking is goal-directed and done in context.

5. Models based on normative decision theory or formal logic are not very useful for

improving practical thinking.

6. Instead of changing everyone to a single style of thinking, make people aware of the

particular strengths, weaknesses, and safeguards of their style.

Cognitive skills were identified from a combination of these propositions and a review of

cognitive skill instruction programs. Fifteen programs were reviewed to identify how thinking

skills were addressed in other instruction and the results of that instruction. The programs were

categorized according to an emphasis in cognitive skill, metacognitive skill, tools for thinking,

and attitudes. The review identified a rich collection of skills and instructional materials. The

results showed improvements on qualitative and objective measures. Most of the materials were

targeted at children, and none of the existing programs had the desired combination of skills

identified for the battle command application. This was not unexpected, but reinforced the

notion of developing materials specifically for cognitive skill enhancement of mid-career Army

officers.

Cognitive skills were selected by considering the propositions and the types of questions

that might be posed by thinkers. The questions were those that in a reflective moment a person

might ask him- or herself to make sure that thinking is on track. Questions like, "what is this

situation?" or "what needs to be accomplished?," help identify important cognitive skills. These

example questions relate to the cognitive skills of situation assessment and goal identification,

respectively. Also in some cases, cognitive skills were proposed from research and theoretical

literature and then an appropriate question identified. For example, metacognition is receiving

increased research attention. Corresponding questions include, "how should I think, what

viu
thinking strategies should I use?'

The candidate skills were then screened for importance and for fitting the available class

time. At the same time skills were considered, lesson topics were chosen. Topics were chosen

based on the number of lessons that could be scheduled and named according to what the

student population could easily relate to. Seventeen hours of instruction were planned for the

following topics: Introduction, Multiple Perspectives, Adapting to Situations, Finding Hidden

Assumptions, Expertise, Practical Reasoning, Integrative Thinking, and Skill Practice. These

lessons addressed:

1. How attitudes affect our thinking.

2. Ways to broaden perspectives.

3. Concepts for identifying hidden assumptions.

4. Ways to resolve uncertainty through reasoning.

5. How to adapt thinking to important aspects of a situation.

6. How to reason to integrate complex and disparate factors.

The materials and instruction tried to conform to an adult learning philosophy that

placed the responsibility for learning on the students, rather than a teacher-presented, studentrecall approach. This approach was not used to the full extent possible, because of the

constraints that the larger course placed on Practical Thinking.

Various methods of instruction were included in the program. Lectures, readings,

exercises, discussions, and case studies were all used to keep the instruction dynamic and

interesting. Many different types of cases and examples were used to keep the focus on the

skill, rather than on the details of the specific problem. Examples included everyday situations,

such as job interviews, buying a car, and choosing a course of college study. Examples included

real lessons from Combat Training Centers, historical military cases, borrowed and devised

tactical problems, and specific problems that the MSF had to address. Specific MSF problems

addressed in the practical thinking lessons included the application of critical reasoning

standards to new weapon concepts, enemy campaign plans, and a tactical concept for

simultaneous attack.

Findings:

A fundamental accomplishment of this Practical Thinking program was the development

of the lesson materials. An explicit cognitive skill approach for instruction of mid-career Army

officers has not been undertaken before to our knowledge. This created a challenge for relating

abstract psychological concepts to practical concerns of battle command.

The Practical Thinking subcourse shared the goal to prepare students to perform tactical

battle command with the rest ofthe Battle Command Course, though there were different

intentions and approaches also. The rest ofthe course was very much directed toward

developing a viable MSF Division and staffthat would perform well in Prairie Warrior '95 and

provide a test bed for warfighting concepts for the 21st century. The style ofthe division and

the student staffwere influeneced greatly by the presence of a general officer as their

commander. While this lead to successful performance as a staff and a Division in the Prairie

Warrior '95 exercise, the applied approach was not always consistent with the themes ofthe

Practical Thinking instruction. Practical Thinking encouraged reflection, flexibility, discovery,

ix
learning, critical and creative thinking for the practice of battle command in the 21st century.

Since the Practical Thinking concepts were newly organized and developed, the principal Battle

Command Course (BCC) instructors and the MSF Commander did not have the full

opportunity to consider this skill approach and its application to the MSF. The MSF

Commander and principal instructors generally supported the goals and objectives of the

Practical Thinking subcourse. However, due to lack of time for familiarization and training on

the concepts, they did not explicitly incorporate Practical Thinking for the students' benefit. The

principal instructors' full attention was required to respond to challenging demands to ensure

that the other 163 hours of instruction would meet other goals. Because of competing priorities

in the MSF, the Practical Thinking lessons were shortened from eight to six meetings, and

instead of 17 hours there were 12 hours of class time.

Given the limited integration, reinforcement, and attention that was afforded the

Practical Thinking instruction, it still had a positive effect. On the average, student self-reports

reflected a gain of 12.5 percent in expertise for the six lessons. Of the students who responded

to an end of course survey, eighty percent (16/20) felt that the course should definitely be

included in future CGSOC classes. Some students felt that the Practical Thinking instruction

was the best part of the Battle Command Course. Some wanted more opportunities and

latitude to apply the concepts in the MSF, and others hoped to receive future lesson materials

and self-development modules. There were also some students who did not appreciate the

intent or approach of the Practical Thinking lessons. Some of these felt that thinking is so

ingrained that there is not much chance of changing it, and others thought that the instruction

should come earlier in their careers.

The instructors felt that there was too much material to cover in the time allotted for

some lessons and this resulted in too little time to practice the skills. They found that smaller

groups of 8 to 12 students compared to the full classes of 18 allowed the skills to be considered

more thoroughly. They also found that Practical Thinking is not so much taught~as it is

something that individuals need to actively pursue. Encouraging students to be self-reflective,

critical thinkers requires special instructor skills.

While this cognitive skills approach is not prescriptive, and perhaps because it is not, it

would help to have assessment instruments for thinking. While an objective paper and pencil

test of thinking is the obvious approach, this is not particularly practical. Practical thinking is

done by a specific individual in a specific context for a specific purpose. It is important to

explore and probably develop cognitive style frameworks and methods that would offer an

individual some insight into his or her particular style and not focus on logical reasoning ability.

An additional concern is to identify a fuller set of cognitive skills. Fifteen similar topics

were generated by the subcourse author and the students were asked which would be most

important for additional lessons. They preferred the more applied topics, specifically, visualizing

the battlefield, maintaining focus in crisis situations, and applying practical thinking to

leadership. Skills that would be more compatible with the set already identified include:

learning and memory, implementing creative ideas, asking questions, discovering problems, and

resolving conflicts. These topics fell into a second cluster behind the top three skills.

Combining the students' responses to the course survey and the insights from the

developers, five tracks are recommended for future work.

1. The first is a continuation of Practical Thinking lessons in the Battle Command
Course. The Practical Thinking lessons provide a good complement to the very

applied nature of what the students are required to do as part of the MSF. The

Practical Thinking components encourage the students to further their skills in real

contexts. The Practical Thinking teaching points can be better integrated into future

Battle Command Courses, since the primary instructors will have a better opportunity

to examine and reinforce the materials.

2. Secondly, a separate elective would be a good medium for the Practical Thinking

topics, since the students were divided in their reactions to the lessons.

3. The concepts should also be tried out during earlier periods of an officer's career, e.g.,

during an Advanced Officer Course or cadet training.

4. A fourth implementation alternative is to pursue development of the material as a

series of self-development modules. Since the material is focused on individuals it

makes sense to format the instruction as self-paced material.

5. While the first four approaches assume that most officers can improve their Practical

Thinking, the fifth suggests determining whether certain officers will not or can not

benefit from Practical Thinking instruction.

With adequate resources and congruous priorities, there is no reason not to pursue all five

extensions simultaneously. Taken together the conceptual thinking for these proposed efforts

should go a long way in forming a plan for infusing Practical Thinking principles throughout the

Army institutional education and self-development programs.

Utlization ofFindings:

The Practical Thinking instruction was incorporated as a part of the premiere course on

Battle Command. At the time of this writing, CGSC plans to increase the Practical Thinking

curriculum from 12 to 27 hours in the Battle Command Course. This is seen as a positive

improvement to allow more skills to be covered and more practice trying the skills. Increased

practice can also be accomplished by out-of-class assignments and more specific feedback. The

Practical Thinking concepts can be reinforced throughout the BCC by adoption of the concepts

by the principal BCC instructors and use in after action reviews of student exercises. The

Practical Thinking instruction can be extended to other CGSOC electives, other Army schooling,

self-development materials, and for professional development seminars.

Beyond the Army applications, the cognitive skills that were identified and lessons that

were developed for them can serve the basis of other adult instruction in complex decision

making environments. The Practical Thinking course materials have already gained interest

from national, state, and county law enforcement and fire fighting agencies. Up until the recent

increased attention in naturalistic approaches, there were few innovations in training decision

making. With the development of this instruction (largely based on creativity, critical thinking,

and everyday reasoning) there is now an alternative to formal logic, normative-based aids, and

sequential procedures that provides great promise for enhancing leader's thinking abilities.

XI
PRACTICAL THINKING: INNOVATION IN BATTLE COMMAND INSTRUCTION

CONTENTS

Page

Scope 1

Background to Practical Thinking Instruction 1

Human Dimensions of Battle Command 7

Requirements for Practical Thinking 12

Focus on Practical Thinking 13

Review of Cognitive Instruction Programs 25

Identification of Cognitive Skills 25

Practical Thinking Lessons 28

Overview 32

Multiple Perspectives 38

Adapting to Situations 47

Finding Hidden Assumptions 56

Practical Reasoning 62

Integrative Thinking '2

Summary of Teaching Points 83

Teaching Practical Thinking 85

Description of Subcourse 85

Relationship to the Battle Command Course 85

Challenges 87

Instructor Assessment 87

Student Assessments • • • 89

Identifying Additional Skills 92

Developer Assessment 92

Recommendations for Cognitive Skill Instruction 97

Assessment of Thinking 97

Implementation of Practical Thinking 97

References *"'

List of Tables

Table 1. C2 Performance Problems and Issues 3

2. Contrast of Formal and Practical Thinking 12

3. Biases 18

4. Cognitive Limitations 19

5. Methods of Instruction 23

6. Problem Solving Skills Suggested by Reflective Questions 26

xiii
thinking strategies should I use?"

The candidate skills were then screened for importance and for fitting the available class

time. At the same time skills were considered, lesson topics were chosen. Topics were chosen

based on the number of lessons that could be scheduled and named according to what the

student population could easily relate to. Seventeen hours of instruction were planned for the

following topics: Introduction, Multiple Perspectives, Adapting to Situations, Finding Hidden

Assumptions, Expertise, Practical Reasoning, Integrative Thinking, and Skill Practice. These

lessons addressed:

1. How attitudes affect our thinking.

2. Ways to broaden perspectives.

3. Concepts for identifying hidden assumptions.

4. Ways to resolve uncertainty through reasoning.

5. How to adapt thinking to important aspects of a situation.

6. How to reason to integrate complex and disparate factors.

The materials and instruction tried to conform to an adult learning philosophy that

placed the responsibility for learning on the students, rather than a teacher-presented, studentrecall approach. This approach was not used to the full extent possible, because of the

constraints that the larger course placed on Practical Thinking.

Various methods of instruction were included in the program. Lectures, readings,

exercises, discussions, and case studies were all used to keep the instruction dynamic and

interesting. Many different types of cases and examples were used to keep the focus on the

skill, rather than on the details of the specific problem. Examples included everyday situations,

such as job interviews, buying a car, and choosing a course of college study. Examples included

real lessons from Combat Training Centers, historical military cases, borrowed and devised

tactical problems, and specific problems that the MSF had to address. Specific MSF problems

addressed in the practical thinking lessons included the application of critical reasoning

standards to new weapon concepts, enemy campaign plans, and a tactical concept for

simultaneous attack.

Findings:

A fundamental accomplishment of this Practical Thinking program was the development

of the lesson materials. An explicit cognitive skill approach for instruction of mid-career Army

officers has not been undertaken before to our knowledge. This created a challenge for relating

abstract psychological concepts to practical concerns of battle command.

The Practical Thinking subcourse shared the goal to prepare students to perform tactical

battle command with the rest ofthe Battle Command Course, though there were different

intentions and approaches also. The rest ofthe course was very much directed toward

developing a viable MSF Division and staffthat would perform well in Prairie Warrior '95 and

provide a test bed for warfighting concepts for the 21st century. The style ofthe division and

the student staff were influeneced greatly by the presence of a general officer as their

commander. While this lead to successful performance as a staff and a Division in the Prairie

Warrior '95 exercise, the applied approach was not always consistent with the themes ofthe

Practical Thinking instruction. Practical Thinking encouraged reflection, flexibility, discovery,

ix
CONTENTS (continued')

Page

Table 7. Summary of Practical Thinking Lessons 30

8. List of Thinking Obstacles from Class 34

9. Preview of Multiple Perspectives Lesson 36

10. Preview of Adapting to Situation Lesson 36

11. Preview of Hidden Assumptions Lesson 36

12. Preview of Practical Reasoning Lesson 37

13. Preview of Integrative Thinking Lesson 37

14. Cues and Reactions by US Pacific Fleet Prior to Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor 40

15. Antecedent Conditions of Groupthink and Symptoms of Poor Decision Making . . 41

16. Metacognitive Skills 51

17. Finding Hidden Assumptions 58

18. Example of Finding Hidden Assumptions 59

19. Handling Unexpected Events 60

20. Assessing Plausibility of Events 60

21. Plausibility Assessment Example 61

22. Reading Materials for Students 89

23. Frequency of Student Assessment Ratings for Practical Thinking Lessons 91

24. Ratings of Importance of Future Lesson Topics 93

25. Proposed Topics for Future Practical Thinking Lessons 98

List of Figures

Figure 1. Information paper on cognitive research 8

2. Lessons addressing thinking obstacles 35

3. Factors affecting perspective 41

4. Commander's decisions '.'''.

5. Decision Triage: A concept for adapting thought to the situation 54

6. Application of metacognition to learning and performance 55

7. Characteristics of integrative thinking levels 82

8. Course Description for Battle Command 86

9. Self-reported expertise before and after instruction 90

xiv
PRACTICAL THINKING:

INNOVATION IN BATTLE COMMAND INSTRUCTION

Scope

Senior Army leaders from the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Combined

Arms Center (CAC), and Command and General Staff Officers College (CGSOC) requested

that ARI develop a program of instruction to increase officers' cognitive skills required for

thinking, reasoning, and deciding in battle command. This report documents:

1. Background to Practical Thinking instruction.

2. Rationale for the requirements of the instruction.

3. Description of six Practical Thinking lessons.

4. Results of Practical Thinking instruction.

5. Ideas for future instruction.

This report is divided into sections corresponding to these topics.

Background to Practical Thinking Instruction

For over a decade, ARI has tracked how the Army instructs and trains problem solving

and decision making. The research has a rich history. The research has taken many forms

including evaluating training programs (e.g., Garlinger, Fallesen, Solick, & Lussier, 1987),

evaluating problem solving instruction (e.g., Lussier, 1990; 1992), measuring command and

control performance (Carter, Lockhart & Patton, 1984; Halpin, in preparation a), assessing staff

procedures (e.g., Fallesen, Carter, Perkins, Michel, Flanagan & McKeown, 1992), developing

decision aids (e.g., Flanagan, McKeown, McDonald & Fallesen, 1992), and identifying tactical

expertise (Michel & Serfaty, 1993). The work has been concerned with how decision making is

performed, how well it is performed, and how it could be performed better. One ingredient that

led to more productive research was following a paradigm that focused on understanding what

people actually do instead of relying on normative models of decision making that suggest what

ideal performance is.

In the last few years the Army outlook on problem solving and decision making has

undergone change. There have been several catalysts for this change, including the growth of

the Battle Command Training Program (BCTP), the Battle Command Battle Laboratory

(BCBL), and the National Training Center (NTC). The focus on providing realistic command

and staff training situations with the commensurate opportunities for seeing how command and

control (C2) is done promoted greater interest. Also senior Army leaders have demonstrated

greater interest in the pursuit of "information age technology" (Department of the Army, 1994).

They have a better appreciation of the possible uses and the complexities of developing the

technology than ever before. Leaders who served in Desert Storm have been influenced to

consider how C2 contributed to their combat experiences, and what conflicts there were in C2

procedures, organizations, or systems. These reflections led to the realization that C2 had been

treated as a single entity, and that people associated C2 most strongly with communications

systems rather than either command or control.

LTG Wishart (1990) urged a clearer distinction of command and control; this in turn led

to greater interest in exploring what makes for good command. GEN Franks (1993) initiated
the use of the term Battle Command to force a change in perception of C2 from a system

understanding to a person-centered one. With the increased attention on C2 and more efforts

to provide greater detail for battle command concepts, came questions about the

appropriateness of the existing normative-based tactical decision making processes. The extent

that the classical model is embedded in the tactical decision making procedures is probably not

recognized by most doctrine writers or practitioners. There has been some subtle shifting in

Army policy guidance, but more importantly there has been increased questioning about what

tactical decision making procedures ought to be. The critical questioning of the tactical decision

making process has been a continuing research theme of ARI's (e.g., Brezovic, Klein &

Thordsen, 1990; Fallesen, 1995; Michel, 1990; Thordsen, Galushka, Klein, Young, & Brezovic,

1989; Thordsen, Klein, Michel, & Sullivan, 1991).

An important question about tactical decision making is whether current Army

instruction on problem solving is adequate. There is no dispute over how the material is taught,

but there are questions about the content and completeness of what is taught. An obvious way

to consider this question is to consider the outcome of recent Army operations, like Just Cause,

Desert Storm, Provide Comfort, and Restore Hope. Based on their successes the general

conclusion is that instruction, doctrine, and practice must be pretty good. To accept this

conclusion one must assume that doctrine and instruction have a direct effect on performance.

There lie two potential flaws. One flaw disregards that decision making is an active process of

generating knowledge and solutions. The other flaw under-estimates the adaptive behavior that

people demonstrate throughout their lives. One's experiences may be the best instruction on

decision making. Knowledge that is developed during prior decision making allows problems to

be solved proficiently regardless of what formal procedures are trained.

Another way to address the question of adequacy of problem solving instruction is to

check the extent that doctrine and teaching practices are used outside of the classroom. A

review of findings on command and control and tactical planning was conducted to examine this

issue (Fallesen, 1993). The general conclusion was that there is a disconnect between what

procedures are taught for the tactical decision making process and what is actually done in

training, combat, or other operational settings. At a Senior Leaders Conference (29 Jun 93),

GEN Franks, TRADOC Commander, echoed this finding by pointing out that how command is

described to be done and how it is actually done are not the same.

The Army's descriptions and teachings imply neat and orderly sequences of tasks that

are well coordinated among commanders, their staff officers, and across echelons. The

deliberate decision making process espoused by Army doctrine is based on the classical model.

It asserts that multiple options are to be examined individually, not until each is evaluated

should the results be compared, and then the best is selected. Students are taught to use

decision matrices to scale and score attributes for each option and then compare options.

Actual performance is almost as varied as there are different commanders and units. The

disconnects are identified in Table 1.

Sometimes the disconnects are so great that it is difficult to assess what does happen.

Typically measurement in research is based on what the doctrinal and teaching models specify

the procedures to be. The pre-determined measures do not capture what is actually done and

the standard measures end up with little or no corresponding data. If commanders and staff do

not do what is taught, then instruction is not as good as it could be. The first reaction might be

to fault training and try to get commanders and staff to adhere more closely with the training

model. Alternatively we must question the appropriateness of the model. The success of our
Table 1.

C2 Performance Problems and Issues

Estimate Procedures

Failure to follow procedures.

Imprecise procedures.

Inflexibility of estimate procedures.

Excessive time demand.

Management of the Process

Failure to include required staff (poor

coordination).

Inadequate Commander involvement.

Poor management of the process.

Information Exchange

Failure to exchange information.

Failure to present plans to commander.

Failure to communicate interpretations.

Situation Assessment

Failure to consider factors.

Failure to verify assumptions.

Failure to assess information quality.

Failure to interpret information.

Failure to make predictions.

Formulation of Alternatives

Failure to track concepts.

Generation of single alternatives.

Inadequate concepts and contingencies.

Evaluation and Comparison of Alternatives

Failure to evaluate.

Serial evaluation of options.

Reaching early decisions.

Inadequate war gaming.

Planning and Synchronization

Incomplete planning.

Poor planning.

Enacting Plans and Monitoring

Poor orders dissemination.

Failure to track the battlefield.

Battle Success

Staff characteristics related to effectiveness.

Understanding related to effectiveness.

Quality of procedures related to effectiveness.

Army's leaders depends on their ability to learn from experience and their resourcefulness in

doing what makes the most sense in spite of the formal procedures that are prescribed.

The underlying assumption of ARI's battle command research is that performance could

be improved noticeably if instruction more closely corresponded to the actual decisions and the

way experts make them.

"Basically, proficient decision makers are able to use their experience to recognize a

situation as familiar, which gives them a sense of what goals are feasible, what cues

are important, what to expect next and what actions are typical in that situation. The

ability to recognize the typical action means that experienced decision makers do not

have to do any concurrent deliberation about options. They do not, however, just

blindly carry out the actions. They first consider whether there are any potential

problems and only if everything seems reasonable, do they go ahead." (Klein , 1989, p.

58)

The disconnect between the doctrine-based teaching points and practical application is

not unexpected if considered from the emerging field of naturalistic psychology. Traditional

teaching on problem solving and decision making is grounded in classical, normative models that

have come from economics theory. They portray the decision making process as one that is

objectively rational and seeks the selection of an optimal option. This thinking considers that all

options (or at least all good options) can be identified and compared to pick the best one. It

mostly ignores how options are developed or identified and diminishes the fact that uncertainty

exists about current situations or future outcomes. The naturalistic approach has something

quite different to say about decision making. Its concern is not with what might be some ideal

of performance that is not humanly likely, but to identify how people decide naturally. The
notion is to direct improvements based on understanding of actual performance. The emphasis

of normative models is rational and optimal selection, while the accent of naturalistic models is

adaptation of what one knows to the situation. The latter perspective acknowledges the

existence of uncertainty and the importance of existing knowledge.

The naturalistic position questions the wisdom of a rigorous, analytical approach.

"The culprit is an ideal of analytical decision making which asserts that we must always

generate options systematically, identify criteria for evaluating theses options, assign

weights to the evaluation criteria, rate each option on each criterion and tabulate the

scores to find the best option. We call this a model of concurrent option comparison,

the idea being that the decision maker deliberates about several options concurrently. .

. . These strategies sound good, but in practice they are often disappointing. They do

not work under time pressure because they take too long. Even when there is enough

time, they require much work and lack flexibility for handling rapidly changing field

conditions." (Klein, 1989, p. 56)

So there are several issues that point to the inappropriateness of the classical models.

The classical processes conforming to the classical model are imprecise and do not completely

cover the tasks that need to be done (Fallesen, 1993). The classical model and resulting

doctrine and instruction do not make allowances other than to start over for changes that might

occur during the situation.

An alternate model was proposed by Fallesen, Lussier, and Michel (1992) that does not

require multiple options or other systematic aspects of the classical model. The principles upon

which a more natural C2 process description was based include the following:

• There is no single sequence of steps which is universally appropriate for C2; C2 activities are

highly interactive and a sequence is best determined immediately preceding and refined while

working a specific problem.

• A simple model should be used as the core of the process description. A model of plan-directmonitor was chosen, which eliminated the standard step of "coordination" because it occurs

throughout the other three processes.

• Situation assessment is a fundamental activity which is based on understanding and predicting.

• Selecting a course of action is only one of many C2 activities. As such, more emphasis needs to

be placed on situation assessment and predicting, wargaming, synchronization, deception planning,

contingency planning, and rehearsals.

• Amount of effort must be allocated appropriately to leave enough time for planning; decisions on

basic concepts must be made early.

• The commander is more involved in focusing the staff than in the past.

• The staff must act as a team and synchronize its own activities.

• Multiple courses of action are developed only if there are sufficient reasons to do so.

• Brief-backs and rehearsals are required for appropriate communication and directing.
• Monitoring involves comparison of actual outcomes against prior expectations.

• Synchronization, contingency planning, and deception planning are explicitly covered as parts of

the C2 process.

• The staff must be aware of their own preferences and biases and be open to other perspectives.

• The avoidance of errors is a key to success; active error checking practices need to be done.

• Wargaming requires its own description as it is the means to visualization, forecasting, and

feasibility assessment.

• Time must be actively managed.

These principles attempted to remedy the imprecision, incompleteness, and flaws of the

classical model by making procedures more adaptive. Some of these themes were echoed in a

pamphlet defining Battle Command (Madigan & Dodge, 1994). Also doctrinal writers

attempted to make the tactical decision making process more adaptive by laying out three

different processes (U.S. Army, 1994). The adaptations take advantage of differences in time

available and the experience of the staff. The resulting processes are called the deliberate,

combat, and quick decision making processes. The deliberate process generally represents the

traditional full process; the combat process is a streamlined deliberate process with greater

involvement by the commander; and the quick process is one where the commander makes

quick decisions as required. The deliberate process is still based on the classical model and its

systematic and rational basis.

The proposed principles were not completely satisfactory as a substitute for the classicalbased procedures, because like the doctrinal-based procedures they too lack detail. But here the

lack of detail was because of the very complex, situation-specific, and broad set of tasks that this

approach recognizes. An alternative to doctrinal-based procedures and general principles was

sought. Instead of specifying one size fits all procedures, the alternative focused on improving

thinking skills. The Practical Thinking instruction described in this report is the alternative to

specific or general prescriptions of procedures. The Practical Thinking approach provides detail

on the underlying cognitive skills and ways of improving them. This cognitive strategy allows a

more detailed examination of how decisions are made and problems solved than the traditional

tactical decision making procedures.

The traditional processes alone are not representative of what is done. The intention of

following systematic, unbiased decisions does not fit the type of tasks required for battle

command. The traditional model can make contributions, but does not need to be the starting

framework for the entire process or used as an unwavering set of rules to follow. Some of the

beneficial uses of the traditional procedures include coordinating the group problem solving

process, communicating decisions to others, and persuading others that one has followed an

objective process supporting unbiased decisions. The basic reason for continuing support of the

deliberate decision making process is probably because of traditionalism and that nothing better

has been developed to displace it.

With growing dissatisfaction with the classical principles, exploration along naturalistic,

lines provides an opportunity to see what potential a cognitive skills approach has for improving

thinking. The goal for the development and trial application of the Practical Thinking

instruction has been to test a cognitive skills approach. Such approaches are not foreign to
education.

Military education, just like the civilian sector, has been concerned with how students

reason, but reasoning is generally relegated to a back seat to instruction in other subjects. In

civilian education, primary and secondary instruction provides few opportunities for students to

acquire such proficiency. Nickerson (1984) points out, "Unfortunately, in spite of the efforts and

successes of many teachers, many students graduate from high school without acquiring the

ability to deal effectively with intellectually demanding problems. A sizable fraction of high

school graduates who are about to enter college are not adequately prepared to do the kind of

thinking their college experience will require of them, (p 28)" A National Academy of Sciences

Panel (1984) examined the performance of high school graduates and found that many cannot

draw correct inferences from written, pictorial, or mathematical information; cannot develop

alternatives and reach conclusions; and have difficulty expressing their ideas intelligibly and

effectively. Even with the very best students, there is room for improvement (Voss, Perkins, &

Segal, 1991).

A cognitive skills approach is similar to that of conceptual competence recommended by

Kluever, Lynch, Matthies, Owens, and Spears (1992). They argue that although leader

development doctrine is sound, the execution is incomplete. While leader development

programs address technical and interpersonal competence, conceptual competence is largely

ignored. To correct this mismatch between leadership doctrine and practice they present eight

issues (pp vii-viii).

1. Army officer training and educational institutions do not explicitly identify the conceptual skills

that graduates must possess.

2. Learning objectives at officer training and educational institutions, especially prior to Senior Staff

College, do not focus on cognitive levels appropriate for developing conceptual competence.

3. The Army formal education system is truncated at the lieutenant colonel level and does not

address the conceptual development of colonels or general officers.

4. The Army's program for advanced civil schooling focuses on developing technical competence to

fill operational requirements rather than general enhancement of conceptual competence.

5. Army systems are aimed at assessing technical and interpersonal competence of officers but the

Army does not have methodology for assessing conceptual competence.

6. The current officer evaluation system does not account for the different levels of cognitive

complexity required for direct-level versus senior-level leaders.

7. DA Pamphlet 600-3, in prescribing an assignment pattern leading to battalion command, focuses

on direct-level leader competencies. Consequently, those selected for command may not have

fully developed conceptual skills.

8. Although Military Qualification Standards III (Coordinating Draft) appropriately calls the selfdevelopment pillar the most dominant and further states that the reading and self-assessment

components are mandatory, there is no mechanism for generating motivation on the part of

individual officers.

The conceptual competencies and cognitive skills of the Army's leaders are appropriate

targets for improving battle command proficiency. If skills, like thinking, reasoning, and
deciding, are not developed, battle command may become an overly analytic or a simply intuitive

practice.

Human Dimensions of Battle Command

A switch in approach from a strictly procedural basis for battle command tasks to one

aiming at the cognitive skills will not be accomplished quickly. To make a change, the

cooperation of key Army activities is needed. One person who was asking similar questions to

those that ARI was raising was the TRADOC Commander. At a Senior Leaders Conference,

GEN Franks reportedly asked the assembled body "what kind of research is being done in

information processing and decision making" (from MG Malcor's notes of the 29-30 Jun 93

meeting). As a result ARI generated an information paper highlighting our programs on tactical

decision making (see Figure 1).

In response to this information GEN Franks in a message (26 Oct 93) to Director ARI

(Dr. Johnson) requested that ARI develop a battle command initiative, recognizing the area is

unique and an undefined capability. The "goal is to identify and explain 'the art of battle

command' and determine how it can be formally transmitted and taught at our institutions."

Further, he requested that ARI

"develop the following areas key to the art of battle command:

A. Define skill requirements.

B. Develop strategies on how these skills may be developed.

C. Determine how these skills can be trained and maintained (institutionalized). This includes

developing measurements and training materials for use in formal schooling."

He also wanted the study to

"Include an analysis of thought processes necessary to be a successful battlefield

commander. Includes visualizing the current and future state of the battlefield, then

formulating concepts of operations to get from one to the other. How to teach and

practice synthesis, that is inductive reasoning from bits and pieces of information.

How to reinforce the intuitive sense of battle commanders that allows conclusions in

an instant informed by an intuition learned from practice."

He requested that the project be conducted as a special study on the human dimensions of

battle command and that it be reported back directly to him. ARI agreed to do this. The study

was organized as a compilation of associated ARI research with emphasis on future directions

that research would take.

Dr. Johnson's reply (15 Dec 93) stated that the effort would be organized around three

objectives:

1. Understand what battle commanders do: define skill requirements necessary for battle command,

distinguishing more effective from less effective commanders.

2. Determine how to train and educate battle commanders: define strategies for developing the

complex thinking skills required for battle command.

3. Identify and analyze the thought processes necessary to meet battle command performance

requirements: identify what the technology base has or can do to assist in developing cognitive

skills such as decision making, intuition and visualization."
Meanwhile GEN Franks also expressed interest in the cognitive decision making

Research on Cognitive Information Processing,

Art of Command, and Decision Making at the

Army Research Institute

The Army Research Institute (ARI) maintains an active program of research in the cognitive functions underlying the

command process. The research is funded in the 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and SBIR programs.

A key element in producing experienced commanders is to understand what specific skills distinguish them from

less experienced commanders. ARI is engaged in research that will identify the critical elements of combat

expertise through a comparative examination of junior and senior officers' cognitive approach to identification and

solution of tactical problems. The final product of this research will be a validated list of characteristics that define

tactical "expertise" and recommendations for training to encourage the growth of such expertise.

Not only must commanders have the ability to use certain skills, but they must also choose the right moment to

use that skill. ARI research is determining the frequency of skill use in certain tactical situations. ARI will develop

techniques for expanding and regulating commanders' strategies for the use of their skills.

Another research project examines the specific mental skills used in situation assessment in maneuver planning.

Interviews are conducted with senior tactical staff and are integrated with up-to-date cognitive theories. The

framework will lead to soldier-centered concepts for improved situation assessment training, procedures, and

decision aids.

In a battle situation, commanders can be overwhelmed by the tremendous amount of information that reaches

them. The role of decision aids is to address specific aspects of that information stream to aid the commander to

make a decision. Decision aids, however, are difficult to develop so that they are effectively integrated into the

commander's job. ARI is engaged in a NATO-sponsored study to put together cognitive analysis techniques to

identify and verify decision making requirements of command and control tasks. The techniques will be tested in

actual decision aiding projects.

Figure 1. Information paper on cognitive research.

processes of commanders during Prairie Warrior '94. He wanted to know how commanders

think, reason, and decide. He requested that battle commanders be studied as part of

TRADOC Analysis Command's (TRAC) data collection. ARI agreed to take the lead for this

issue. ARI researchers observed a student playing the division commander of the Mobile Strike

Force (MSF) '94 and a second student playing the commander for a non-automated division.

The effort aimed to determine the effects of "digitization enhancement" on the shared

understandings of the battlefield and on the battle tempo. It was hypothesized that digitization

would increase situation awareness of the MSF commander and that in turn the better

situational awareness would produce shorter decision cycles and decisions of greater breadth.

Style of reasoning was assessed for each commander. The MSF commander was found

to be reflective, tending to view many perspectives, and organizing information into a coherent

picture. The other commander tended to focus on isolated problems using hypotheticaldeductive reasoning. It was found that these different styles did influence the two commanders

to perform differently. The divergent style of the MSF commander led to more self-reliance on

his own interpretations and less perceived need for others' interpretations. Thinking about

situations with very complex mental models led to a preference for similarly rich, integrated

information. The digitization was not particularly sophisticated to provide comparably processed

and integrated information. The complex understandings of the MSF commander, that were

derived through considerable mental effort, led to some reluctance to consider contradictory

evidence. The style differences between the two commanders overshadowed any observable

difference due to the digitization enhancements. The idea that an information technology's

usefulness needs to accommodate decision makers' styles was reinforced by seeing the style
differences of the two student commanders. (TRADOC Analysis Center, 1994).

This Prairie Warrior '94 analysis illustrates the value of examining battle command from

a psychological perspective. If it had not been done, the differences in performance could have

been attributed to digitization effects, instead of the relatively stronger effects of individual

cognitive style and skill.

These observations along with findings from previous field exercises were used in

reporting on The Human Dimensions of Battle Command (Halpin, in preparation b). There

were 10 observations or insights on cognition reported to the TRADOC Commander. The top

insight concerned the lack of explicit instruction on ways to improve thinking.

Insight: 1. Army officers are not formally instructed in alternate ways of thinking, reasoning,

and deciding.

So what: Perhaps the most critical assets that battle commanders possess are their abilities

to think, reason, and decide. Battle commanders display -- and situations demand -- variety.

Instruction should not advocate methods based on a single model.

What next: Identify the variability in leaders and determine how to enhance and supplement

skills used in everyday thinking, reasoning, and deciding.

A desired by-product of the study was to gain TRADOC's endorsement and participation

in a cognitive research program, allowing necessary research into understanding leader/battle

commander decision making. At the same time it was hoped that existing and emerging findings

could be transitioned into doctrine, training, leadership, organization, materiel, and soldier

developments and begin to displace the limitations of the traditional principles of decision

making. It was thought that new developments in the understanding of "natural" cognitive skills

(e.g., problem solving strategies, decision making behavior, planning) would be possible to

incorporate into a self-development program. Since cognition is a uniquely individual and

personal concern the most direct way to reach the officers may be to make self-development

materials available that could be pursued according to each individual's needs and interests.

The self-study materials could be tested, updated, and eventually could serve as a model of the

skills to reinforce in classroom instruction and doctrine, if the materials proved valuable.

TRADOC's interest was more immediate. TRADOC had an urgent desire to implement

the notions of the battle command study into classroom instruction. MG Herrling, TRADOC

Chief of Staff, reported the CG's tasking "to move from study and analysis to implementation

and get an elective started at CGSOC, centered around decision making/problem solving

aspects of Battle Command" (ATCS memorandum, 19 Aug 94). GEN Franks instructed MG

Ernst, DCST, to "take the lead and, in coordination with CGSOC, Battle Command Battle LabLeavenworth and ARI, develop prototype elective course. Focus should be on developing/

teaching alternative ways of problem identification, formulation, and solution. Objective is to

offer the course to all students by January 1995" (memorandum, 15 Sep 94). ARI was instructed

to "continue to research the art of Battle Command, assist in development of the course, and

provide feedback and methodology for instruction. Conduct an assessment of the prototype

elective and recommend appropriate adjustments, if required, for subsequent classes at

CGSOC."
LTG Miller, Commander Combined Arms Center, directed the tasking to the Command

and General Staff Officer College (CGSOC) (memorandum from ATZL-CG, 21 Aug 94).

"[D]evelop a Battle Command Course to be available for CGSOC students by January

1995. Purpose of the BCC is to provide our future commanders with the theoretical

underpinnings of their craft and to develop key thinking, reasoning, and decision

making competencies required of effective battle commanders at battalion and brigade

level."

CGSOC took the lead for the elective and requested that ARI participate. The cognitivebased instruction was included as part of the Battle Command elective, A308. This elective was

a departure from normal CGSOC courses. Seventy-three students were selected for

participation. The 180 hour elective organized the students into the staff for the Mobile Strike

Force (MSF), a notional Division with weapon and tactics capabilities projected to the year

2015. The students were led by BG Geoffrey Miller as their Commander. The students were

responsible for learning and defining the advanced system capabilities, including a command

information management system. They organized staff functions for more versatile operations

and developed their own staff procedures and force tactics, techniques, and procedures. They

had contact sessions on advanced tactics and logistics and prepared as staff groups with

command post exercises.

ARI approached the instruction by addressing specific cognitive insights:

1. Need instruction on alternate ways to think, reason and decide.

2. Domain knowledge is paramount in Practical Thinking.

3. Emphasize situation assessment skills over rigorous analytical approaches.

4. Need better problem identification.

5. Determine how commander's intent is understood and misunderstood.

6. More than one problem solving approach is viable.

7. Provide explicit instruction on thinking and planning.

8. Include instruction on managing one's own thinking.

Seventeen hours were allowed for the cognitive-based instruction out of the 180

scheduled hours. There were many objectives for this course, centered around the test bed

activities for future doctrine, weapons, staff organization, etc. The Practical Thinking portion

did not intend to teach battle command concepts per se, nor teach battle command lessons

learned from Combined Training Centers, (CTCs), nor teach tactical decision making

procedures, nor teach MSF system capabilities, procedures, or staff organization. These were

subject matter areas that would be better developed and taught by others. Although these areas

were reinforced when relevant, the ARI instruction focused on cognitive-skill based instruction.

Background summary.

Classical models of decision making and reasoning have provided the basis for Army and

military instruction on tactical problem solving and decision making. The emerging field of

naturalistic psychology brings into question many of the explicit rules from the classical models

that have become embedded in Army doctrine and instruction. Naturalistic approaches

concentrate on the practical ways in which decision makers, especially expert decision makers in

complex settings, adapt and decide. Actual field performance shows marked departure from the

10
explicit rules of the classical models.

An alternate approach for preparing Army leaders to decide has been taken. The focus

has been switched from procedural steps and rigid decision rules to the cognitive skills basic to

problem situations. The groundwork for this cognitive skills approach to instruction was laid in

a study identifying the Human Dimensions of Battle Command (Halpin, in preparation b) for

the TRADOC Commander. That study recommended that Army officers be given explicit

instruction on how to enhance and supplement their skills for everyday thinking, reasoning, and

deciding.

GEN Franks responded to that recommendation by asking ARI to help in the

development and trial application of a battle command course. TRADOC, Combined Arms

Center (CAC), BCBL, and CGSOC worked together to stand up an innovative course on Battle

Command, employing students in a division of the future. Cognitive skills instruction developed

by ARI was incorporated as part of that elective.

ARI's goals with the course were to verify that an approach to cognitive skills instruction

could be defined commensurate with the concerns of battle command and that the instruction be

developed and transitioned for suitable implementation to the students. This report describes

the rationale and the approach to the cognitive instruction.

11
Requirements for Practical Thinking

Instruction on Practical Thinking was requested by senior Army leadership to help

develop battle command skills in future commanders and principal staff officers. The concept

for Practical Thinking instruction encompassed new alternative topics on ways of thinking that

were recommended in the ARI Battle Command study (Halpin, in preparation b).

The concept for instruction was based on the assumption that people do not naturally

reason using formal operations from standard logic in dynamic, uncertain situations (Cheng,

Holyoak, Nisbett, & Oliver, 1986). Rather, research has shown that problem solvers in these

types of situations tend to rely on their prior knowledge and experience to generate and develop

a workable solution (Fallesen, 1993; Klein, 1989). Therefore, the challenge for lesson

development was to include instruction to enhance natural predispositions with evaluative

techniques.

Practical Thinking is an important and valid notion to contrast with formal thinking (see

Table 2). Galotti (1989) identifies the characteristics of formal and everyday reasoning. Formal

reasoning can occur when all premises are supplied, problems are well-bounded, and there is

usually one correct answer. Everyday reasoning occurs when premises are implicit and some

premises are not supplied at all, problems are not well-bounded, several possible answers might

exist, established procedures rarely exist, there is uncertainty about the outcome of a solutionsometimes even after the solution is applied, and problems are solved as a means to further

ends, not as ends in themselves. Scribner (1986) describes Practical Thinking in contrast to

Table 2.

Contrast of Formal and Practical Thinking

Aspect Formal Thinking Practical Thinking

Application Well-bounded problems Complex, everyday problems

Variation General purpose Tailored to circumstances, values,

experience

Source of

control

Theory dictates Person determines how thinking best

proceeds in each situation

Process Convergent Creative and discriminating

Orientation Form, process oriented Goal oriented

Foundation All premises exist Some premises are implied or missing

Knowledge Knowledge exists or can be

determined

Some level of uncertainty always exists

Goals Goals are taken as given Goals are determined. If they already

exist, they are checked.

Outcome Single answer exists and is found

through application of the process

An answer might not occur or many

acceptable answers might exist

Theoretical

basis

Classical models, enforce rational

decision making

Naturalistic, understand what makes

people adaptive and effective

12
theoretical thinking. Practical Thinking involves integrated mental processes directed toward

some goal and performed in specific circumstances. Practical Thinking ability involves

adaptation to changing conditions of the circumstances and to the changing states of knowledge,

purpose, and values of the person.

Practical Thinking was conceptualized to include aspects of both critical and creative

thinking. Critical thinking is judgmental (analytical), cautious, and convergent. It checks on the

sensibility, relevance, and relationship of meaning and possibility. Creative thinking is

generative, daring, and divergent. Together they make up Practical Thinking that relates to the

naturalistic model based on how people actually think and act. The use of the term Practical

Thinking resulted from the realization that innovation and evaluation complement each other.

In this sense, this is the practical way to approach thinking, rather than by classical or formal

ways.

Available courses based on critical thinking skills were not sufficient because they were

often based only on the assumptions of formal methods from classical logic that, while having

evaluative components, required one to ignore plausible solutions generated from one's

experience (e.g., Peng & Reggia, 1990). Similarly, courses on creative thinking emphasized prior

knowledge and experience, but did not emphasize evaluation of the information or recursive

processes (Bransford & Stein, 1984; Cinnamon & Matulef, 1979; Friedman, 1984).

Practical Thinking is related to the naturalistic models that are based on how people

actually think and act, rather than on how someone or some organization believes they should

think and act. Practical Thinking does not assume a normative model of behavior. Rather, this

approach advocates that one use one's experience, knowledge, and evaluative skills to explore,

define, and refine the problem, find a solution, and weigh the consequences. Also important is

learning to manage thinking during the short term and how to learn and prepare oneself for

future problems. In this sense, this instruction presents students with a "practical" way to

approach problems.

The proposed objectives for Practical Thinking were

1. To make students aware of alternate ways of thinking (that contrast with formal,

logical, procedural models of decision making).

2. To introduce Practical Thinking skills to students and to increase their competency

with those or similar skills they themselves determine.

It was recognized that the instruction would have a strong attitudinal component; that students'

attitudes would influence whether they would change their ways of thinking.

Focus on Practical Thinking

The focus of the ARI concept was to increase the student's awareness of the importance

of thought and to improve useful skills. The concept addressed a perceived deficiency in an

officer's traditional, formal instruction. That instruction does not explicitly improve ways of

thinking, except from a technical competency standpoint (Kluever et al, 1992). Doing so would

at least increase their appreciation of the criticality of Practical Thinking for complex problems.

Thus the approach was to center on individual instead of staff or team development. A

13
considerable part of the effort was to influence attitudes. Much of tactical decision making

instruction already focuses on the external structure of the process (namely, the order of steps,

the use of decision matrices, and coordination among staff). Thus it was deemed important to

focus on the individual reasoning level of skill that allows the adaptation necessary to solve

actual problems that the procedures do not provide guidance for.

In the normal course of Army instruction, thinking skills are left to lay fallow under the

surface of the more apparent activities and facts that can be explicitly taught, observed, and

tested. Curriculum development efforts try to compensate for this indirect approach to thinking

by requiring the classification of lessons according to Bloom's taxonomy of educational

objectives (1956). Bloom's widely-used taxonomy offers little beyond description, suffers from a

weak conceptual framework, and uses indistinct labels. (See Paul, 1993 for further discussion of

Bloom's taxonomy and its relationship to critical thinking.) This instruction, in contrast to the

"cognitive afterthought" of the behavioral approach, is intended to force thinking issues to the

surface.

Attention to critical thinking and reasoning is already of interest in Army education.

Several examples exist at the Combined Arms Center. The Battle Command Battle Laboratory

(BCBL) is interested in how to develop future leaders and the skills required. The Curriculum

Development Department is also tracking the developments of the critical thinking movement.

They realize the complexities involved in implementing it in an institution aimed at preparing

officers for duty as field grade commanders and principal staff officers. One reason cited for

not more vigorously pursuing critical thinking is the absence of good ways to measure its effects.

At the 1994 ARI-BCBL Battle Command Workshop, the education subgroup reported the need

for a shift away from the institution being responsible for learning to officers themselves taking

on the responsibility.

The CGSOC Professional Reading Program is consistent with a skills approach and

intends to improve thinking, but does not explicitly identify the skills to be developed. The

Leadership Instruction Department is exploring new ways of teaching related subject matter

(e.g., A716, New perspectives for leading the Army through change and C710, Senior-level

leadership and the art of command). In these programs, improving thinking is more or less an

incidental process.

One alternative is to focus more on experience. Klein (1989) proposes that, instead of

relying on classical analytical models, we need to look to the recognitional side of making

decisions to find ways to improve.

"There are different ways to make decisions, analytical ways and recognitional ways,

and that we must understand the strengths and limits of both in order to improve

military decision making. Too many people say that the ideal is for soldiers to think

more systematically, to lay out all their options and to become, in effect, miniature

operations researchers. This attitude is even built into military doctrine." (Klein, 1989,

p57).

Analytic, systematic methods are not necessarily effective. Systematic procedures alone do not

offer much support to identify or overcome what we do not know. Nor does a systematic

approach support the time-compressed conditions of most battle command decisions.

We probably think in a natural way rather than systematically because of a principle

14
called cognitive economy (Rosch, 1978). Cognitive economy is natural and adaptive. It tries to

employ the smallest amount of cognitive effort to provide a mental reserve when higher thinking

loads are demanded. Analytical decision procedures conflict with cognitive economy because of

the heavy load they impose on attention, memory, and processing.

"The goal of analytical decision training is to teach procedures that are so abstract and

powerful that they will apply to a wide variety of cases. If this had been successful, it

would have been quite efficient. However, we have learned that such rules do not

exist. Instead, we need to enhance expertise by presenting trainees with a wide variety

of situations and outcomes, and letting them improve their recognitional abilities."

(Klein, 1989, p 64).

The practical importance of recognition and experience are given in the following story.

"A recognitional approach can save time and effort for more important concerns. An

experienced brigade commander looked at a map and selected a site for an

engagement area Other sites were then proposed that he had not even bothered

to consider, although they seemed plausible to his less-experienced subordinate. He

was able to explain why each alternative was defective and seemed surprised that

anyone would even think about them. In other words, his skill enabled him to

generate only plausible options so that he did not have to bother with computing

advantages and disadvantages. He could use all of his experience to judge what was

needed for the situation. He could generate a workable first option, so there was no

reason for him to generate many more options and then have to perform a painstaking

evaluation of them." (Klein, 1989, p 58).

To take advantage of this recognitional perspective, Klein suggests that training be

revised. He believes that some special positions need training in analytical decision strategies,

but general training might be more productive by focusing on situation assessment. He indicates

that actual cases need to be considered to develop sharper discriminations of which

circumstances call for analytical procedures.

The Practical Thinking approach is compatible with Klein's arguments but imply a

different conclusion and a different approach to instruction. Although consistent with Klein's

recommendations that decision making can be improved by increased exposure to domain

situations, we must also equip students with techniques for learning to learn and increase their

desire to attend to everyday situations. Everyday situations are excellent opportunities to learn

if we were only to reflect on them. Instead of concentrating on abstract, universal procedures

(the direction implied by classical models) or on specific cases to build and refine tactical

judgments (the direction implied by Klein's theory), the Practical Thinking approach focuses on

the thinking skills themselves. Thus it recognizes that a single, generalized model will not be

optimal across situations. This approach borrows the attention to situational and contextual

factors of Klein's recognitional approach, but tries to make the recognitional and other

reasoning processes better understood by more explicit definition.

The Practical Thinking approach also addresses the role of the student in the instruction.

By focusing the students on their thinking, they should reflect on how they are thinking, assess

how they do it, how they might do it differently, and how intrinsic feedback, motivation, and

attitudes can improve it. "[Altitudes as well are critical to creative thinking. They cannot be

taught directly, any more than one can teach students to like Shakespeare. Teaching creativity

15
must involve exposing students to the flavor and texture of creative inquiry and hoping they get

hooked." (Perkins, 1984, p 21)

"A lack of confidence in our ability to solve problems can manifest itself in a variety of

ways, including lack of interest, fear of exploring new domains, and fear of criticism.

These feelings can interfere with problem solving and can prevent us from engaging in

activities that might improve our problem-solving skills. ... By identifying the

attitudes that inhibit success and defining appropriate goals, we can begin to explore

strategies that may stop us from repeating earlier failures." (Bransford & Stein, 1993, p

221)

The goal of this cognitive based instruction was to make a pragmatic model of thinking,

reasoning, and deciding more explicit. Several propositions can be identified that impact on the

requirements of cognitive skill identification and instruction. These propositions are discussed

in the following paragraphs.

Thinking as a skUL

Thinking is considered to be a skill that can be improved (e.g., Friedman, 1984).

Naturalistic methods of studying battle command performance and educational theory make it

possible to identify a set of critical thinking skills appropriate for remediating errors and suitable

for instruction (e.g., Carlson, Khoo, Yaure & Schneider, 1990). Recent advocates of a field

called situated learning claim that learning only occurs by performing actual processes in the

applied situations. Reder (1994) says though that basic skills do generalize from one context to

the next. "There is ample evidence that transfer is much better when instruction includes both

concrete and abstract instruction" ("Academy Releases Report," p 16).

Errors in thinking.

A person's performance may result in undesired outcomes. Although not necessarily

defined as errors, the performance in question is subject to improvement. Reasoning errors

may fall into identifiable, regular categories, like cognitive limitations and biases, but not all of

the biases identified in the research literature are bona fide problems (Gigerenzer, 1991). The

area of decision making bias research typically follows the premises of rational probability

theory. The apparent biases can disappear when the decision maker's previous knowledge is

taken into account and by distinguishing between single cases and judgments over time. The

errors or biases that are identified in the literature probably represent reasonable adaptations of

people's abilities to situational constraints. The definitions of biases are useful anyhow as a

starting point for considering possible ways to improve performance. Table 3 shows some

general statements of biases and Table 4 shows cognitive limitations. A survey of tactical

planning errors is also reported by Fallesen (1993). Instruction can be geared toward actual

limitations to keep errors from recurring.

Adaptive thinking.

Decreasing reasoning errors or improving reasoning is tied to flexible, adaptive thinking

(Payne, Bettman & Johnson, 1988; 1993). Being sensitive to the factors that are important to

16
adapt to, is an important part of critical thinking. The factors or characteristics can be classified

according to one of three sets: task (what is required to do), situation (or environment), and

decision maker (or person).

"Skilled practical thinking incorporates features of the task environment (people,

things, information) into the problem-solving system. It is as valid to describe the

environment as part of the problem-solving system as it is to observe that problem

solving occurs 'in' the environment. . . . experience makes for greater rather than less

reliance on environmental sources of information .... If experts in a domain use the

environment more (or more effectively) than novices, two implications follow:

becoming skilled in a practical domain may move in a direction opposite to that posed

by classical psychological learning theory, namely, from the abstract to the concrete.

A second implication is that models of thinking that can only deal with the world as

represented in the head may find analysis of many practical thinking problems quite

intractable." (Scribner, 1986, p 23-25).

Various educational research supports the notion that thinking can be adapted to these features

by teaching people how to control, regulate, or guide their thinking (e.g., Perkins, Faraday &

Bushey, 1991). This skill is called metacognition.

Flexibility.

Scribner (1986) indicates the importance of flexibility. Flexibility is "solving the 'same

problem' now one way, now another, each way finely fitted to the occasion. Formal models of

problem solving lead us to expect that repetitive problems or problems of the same logical class

will be solved by the same sequence of operations (algorithms) on all occasions of their

presentation. Variability sometimes enters the system in the guise of shifts in executive control

from one higher-order strategy to another. These strategies, presumably, differ from each other

in the modes of solution they regulate, but each generates consistent solutions to all instances of

a given problem type." (p 22)

Creativity.

Schön (1983) refers to a concept called 'informal improvisation' and calls it the hallmark

of professional expertise. Studies by Kusterer (1978) show that much of a worker's knowledge is

about handling situations that the 'standard operating plan' did not cover.

"Practical problem solving is an open system that includes components lying

outside the formal problem ~ objects and information in the environment

and goals and interests of the problem solver. Expertise in practical

thinking involves the accomplishment of a fitting relationship among these

elements, an accomplishment aptly characterized as functionally adaptive.

Beneath the surface of adaptation, however, he continuing acts of creativity

- the invention of new ways of handling old and new problems. Since

creativity is a term ordinarily reserved for exceptional individuals and

extraordinary accomplishments, recognizing it in the practical problemsolving activities of ordinary people introduces a new perspective from

which to grasp the challenge of the ordinary." (Scribner, 1986, p 28)

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Table 4.

Cognitive Limitations (from Essens et al., 1995)

Limitations Subcategories Examples

Schema Instantiation Poor fit of data to schema or slots with guesses instead of data (poor modeling).

Poor use of lower (over-specialization) or higher (over-generalization) schema.

Error in accretion: an experience is incorrectly assessed as another.

Error in tuning: incorrect elaboration and refinement of concepts.

Improper use of most common schema; forced to fit the situation (a "habit" bias).

Several schemata are triggered, but wrong one is picked.

Schemata are confused. Familiar elements incorrectly called into script.

Too much reliance on existing schemata, reluctance to generate specialized schema.

Formulation Inappropriate conditions embedded in the declarative part of the schema.

Inappropriate rules or responses embedded in the procedural part of the schema.

Key parts of rule conditions are omitted or new rules are incorrectly formed.

Non-standard elements haven't been stored as cues & are unavailable to form new

schemata or to distinguish existing ones.

Schemata are not formulated when appropriate.

Execution Correct schema is activated, but procedural error (e.g., computational error).

Learning Classification Links among concepts are not made or made incorrectly.

Important attributes are left out of classifications when they are formed.

Memories are excessively reorganized when new experiences and repetitions occur.

Feedback Insensitive to feedback (related to feedback biases).

Rules Rules or regularities are not generalized to induce new rules.

Knowledge Representation Insufficient knowledge and relationships, e.g., poor goals, values, or knowledge.

Poor organization of knowledge.

Inability to use or retrieve appropriate representations.

Inappropriate crossed memories.

Poor integration of knowledge or poor representation for a particular state.

Basic Processing Understanding Poor encoding or representation of the situation and its meaning.

Ignoring important classification attributes.

Failure to recognize salient features and critical relationships in a problem.

Failure to consider implications of models identified in the search.

Generalization Missing or inappropriate abstractions or chunking.

Incorrect normalization - transformation to an event that was not most likely.

Thinking occurs at wrong level of abstraction. Too few abstractions or relations.

Reasoning Inappropriate strategy selection (incorrect schema) and reasoning.

Inconsistent application of a strategy.

Inability to hold in mind various possibilities.

Poor trade-offs about importance.

Ignoring uncertainty rather than trying to resolve it.

Failure to project ahead.

Inadequate search for counterexamples.

Inappropriate use of analogical reasoning.

Failure to critique, check for consistency, validity of assumptions.

Failure to de-conflict ambiguous information.

Metacognition External

monitoring

Failure to recognize that a situation requires something to be done.

Failure to gauge difficulty of a problem.

Internal

monitoring

Failure to assess likelihood of knowing.

Failure to monitor actions, evaluate one's strategy.

Failure to organize thoughts.

Regulation Inability to allocate attention and cognitive resources.

Poor use of time.

Failure to set goals.

Inability to synchronize processes.

Inability to control actions, revise one's strategy.

Planning is overly opportunistic; lacks adequate control.

19
Efficiency.

"Skilled Practical Thinking often seeks those modes of solution that are the most

economical or that require the least effort." (Scribner, 1986, p 23). "By partitioning the world

into classes, we decrease the amount of information we must perceive, learn, remember,

communicate, and reason about." (Smith, 1988, p 19).

Knowledge.

Our capabilities to adapt our own knowledge, understand and generate new knowledge,

and to learn are important. Goal-directed thinking can be considered to be either using the

knowledge we have already learned so we can solve a problem, generating new knowledge to

solve a problem, or to learn the process so the knowledge can be produced when it is needed.

"Practical thinking involves the acquisition and use of specific knowledge that is

functionally important to the larger activities in which problem solving is embedded.

In recent years the centrality of knowledge to intelligent performance has been widely

recognized in cognitive theory. ... In every job examined, these procedures were

constructed around, and relied on knowledge specific to the setting and relevant to the

task at hand -- case equivalencies, storage dimensions, numerical representation

systems. . . . Less routinized activities pose more 'problems' and thus require the

acquisition of more information for overcoming problems." (Scribner, 1986, p 26-27).

"[P]art of the problem is that conventional instruction usually presents knowledge as given, when

it should encourage a view of knowledge as the product of creative effort." (Perkins, 1984, p 22).

Domain knowledge is essential to rapid tactical problem solving. Already knowing is more

useful under time pressure than skills to construct knowledge. Instruction for "knowing how to"

should not in any way replace "knowing that." Already knowing is difficult, however, especially

as the roles of the Army and its officer corps grow in diversity.

Problem identification.

The Human Dimensions of Battle Command report indicated problem identification as

an often overlooked aspect of problem solving.

"Practical thinking involves problem formation as well as problem solution. Models of

formal problem solving suggest that problems are 'given' and intellectual work consists

of selecting and executing a series of steps that will lead to a solution; the initial

problem may be decomposed into subproblems as part of the solution procedure, but

its terms are fixed. . . . But even preset problems may be subjectively reconstituted.

On many occasions, problems arise that have a general shape but not a definite

formulation. One artful aspect of practical thinking is to construct or redefine a

problem that experience or hunch suggests will facilitate a solution or enable that

application of a preferred mode of problem solving. This form of creativity is

noticeable and has been well-remarked in professional activities, ... in which the

capacity to devise problems that fit good solutions is highly prized." (Scribner, 1986, p

21)

20
Variability in thinking styles.

Trying to change the ways people think is more difficult than teaching declarative

knowledge (e.g., arithmetic facts, weapon capabilities, tactical maneuvers). Students probably

feel that learning new ways to think would be unnecessary, since they already use everyday

reasoning relatively effectively. Styles have been acquired as ways that an individual has learned

to adapt to his or her circumstances. There are considerable differences in the style of thinking

that people display. Various styles have different strengths or weaknesses and differ across

situations. Self-awareness is an important part of appreciating one's own thinking style,

preparing to modify ways of thinking, and "posturing" oneself to solve a specific problem. Based

on an unpublished search of methods, existing types of "cognitive style" are of questionable use

for tactical decision making. New ones need to be developed so we can better understand the

dynamics of behavior.

Inadequacy ofprevious models.

Classical models of decision making assume all-knowing decision makers, one choice

situations, and predictable futures. These models are based in economics theory and are of

limited use in complex, dynamic, uncertain problems in tactics and battle command. Formal,

logical models of reasoning are of little use in the complex, dynamic, uncertain world in which

we must adapt (Beach & Lipshitz, 1993). This is because formal logic is obscure and rigid. It is

primarily an organizational form to relate aspects of known, assumed, or implied information.

The reasons that formal logic are not complete or appropriate include:

1. Logic is just one aspect of reasoning. Logic alone is not sufficient for improving

reasoning (Colberg, Nester & Trattner, 1985; Johnson-Laird, 1983).

2. Formal logic does not address content or context. People typically look for content

and context cues to adapt to the situation. Deductions may be based on content

instead of the laws of logical form. People also construct explanatory models of

human behavior (Pennington & Hastie, 1993).

3. Seldom does one have complete, certain information. An important part of practical

reasoning is plausible reasoning, when there is uncertainty. To say that a person

needs more information before he can start thinking is often pointless. Thinking is

concerned precisely with extracting that information from experience and projecting it

to situations where there are unknowns. (See Rogers, 1994 for discussion of Battle

Command and this point.)

4. Logic is a formal system of thought. It is complex, time-consuming to learn and apply.

It comes from a game where one person tries to persuade a listener to agree with

premises so that the listener will have to accept the conclusion.

5. The technique concentrates on form not on content. But reasoning involves both;

content is overwhelmingly important for assessing the reliability or truth in an

argument or belief.

6. Premises are taken as true or false. But our perception of truth is seldom absolute,

without any doubt. There is uncertainty associated with our informal premises. When

21
the truth of one or more premises is in question, the conclusion is in doubt. Even in

formal logic, "we must reach a premise which we must either assume to be true

without sufficient proof or which we must evaluate by methods other than deductive

reasoning" (Moore, 1967, p 18).

7. Logic relies on specific meanings, more restrictive than everyday language usages (e.g.,

words like "all," "is," and "not"; figurative uses are precluded, like 'My uncle is a lion.')

People have difficulty with negative statements in logic, e.g. drawing inferences from

negative premises (Matlin, 1983).

8. The rules of logic do not conform with the rules of conversation, when one considers a

speaker's intentions (Puckett, Pollina, Laipple, Tunick & Jurden, 1993). Imagine

someone tells you that if it rains, then the enemy cannot reach their terrain objective.

You know that the enemy has not reached their objective, so you conclude that the

speaker also is indicating that it must have rained. A person's understanding of

another's verbal intentions follows Grice's (1975) maxims of communication

(specifically: quantity, quality, relation, and manner). If there were relevant reasons

other than the relationship stated, then we assume the person would have mentioned

them (Chapman, 1993).

Abstract training in logic has been shown to be ineffective for aiding reasoning (Cheng,

Holyoak, Nisbett, & Oliver, 1986).

Organizing instruction.

There are several considerations for the combination of instructional materials. One

view suggests that cognitive skills are trained in an incidental matter with focus on specific

subject matter, e.g., mathematics, physics, or in this case, tactics. Another view, and the one

integrated into this instruction, was that cognitive skills can be explicitly identified and organized

in a coherent manner (Hayes-Roth, 1980; Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth, 1979).

"Centering curriculum on subject matter also causes the thinking skills to be taught

piecemeal. Thinking skills are taught haphazard as the content dictates. This makes it

impossible to comprehensively cover in any systematic manner the thinking skills the

students need to learn. When teachers are forced systematically to cover prescribed

content, they are distracted from systematically covering thinking skills. The content

may be covered, but thinking skills probably will be neglected." (Friedman, 1984, p

24)

This relates also to the selection of exercises used to illustrate teaching points and practice skills.

Using many short exercises with different situations and keeping the problems brief, helps put

the focus on the skills, rather than the specific problem context (de Bono, 1976).

Methods ofinstruction.

Education and training of soldiers in this abstract area of ways of thinking, needs to use

variability in methods and materials. The material must be interesting, attention getting, and as

practical as possible. Various approaches of presenting the instruction were considered (e.g.,

22
Table 5.

Methods of Instruction

Implementation Example targets

Lectures Significance, alternate perspectives, basic explanations

Readings Everyday reasoning, naturalistic reasoning, groupthink

Exercise discussion 'What does this mean to you? How would you apply this?'

Self-awareness reflection Solve a problem and report on how you did it.

Attention exercises Discuss obstacles, biases, shortcomings of decision matrices

Skill-building exercise Metacognitive "quick test," questions, memory techniques,

assumption testing, creating problems for others, creativity, multiple

perspectives, etc.

Scenarios for discussion

problems

'How would you solve this?' Marine tactical decision games (Schmitt,

1994), ARI experimental scenarios

Case studies Problem identification

see Eitington, 1989), but the overriding concern was the content or substance of the instruction.

All of these implementation techniques (shown in Table 5) were used in some form. Selfawareness instruments and testing were desired but not used because of the lack of suitable

materials consistent with the philosophies of this instruction.

In a pedagogical model of instruction, the teacher prescribes what is to be learned and

the students demonstrate what was taught. This ensures some minimal level of quality in

measurable objectives, but puts the students in a passive, receptive role. While these intentions

are suitable for teaching facts, algorithmic procedures, and well-understood areas, they are

questionable for very complex, dynamic, and uncertain areas (such as battlefield planning,

command, and control) and for adults who have some advanced level of competency. Using

behavioral objectives assumes that the collective wisdom of the institution knows best what a

student should know and the measurable standard by which the instructional process and the

student can be held accountable. The wide variability in experience and procedures conflicts

with the notion of "one size fits all" procedures. In contrast the andragogical model (Knowles,

1990) proposes that the teacher's role is as a facilitator and that the student is primarily

responsible for learning. Cognitive instruction for mid-career officers would certainly fit the

andragogical model much better than the pedagogical model. To excel the conventional model

relies on regulation, while the adult learning model relies on students' interest for autonomous

inquiry and application.

Knowles (1990) lists six identifying features of this adult learning approach which are

relevant to consider for the practical thinking application.

1. Adults need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it.

2. Adults have a self-concept of being responsible for their own decisions and lives.

3. Adults come into an educational activity with both a greater volume and a different

quality of experience from youth.

4. Adults become ready to learn those things they need to know and be able to do in

23
order to cope effectively with their real-life situations.

5. Adults are life-centered (or task-centered or problem-centered).

6. While adults are responsive to some external motivators (better jobs, promotions,

higher salaries, and the like) the most potent motivators are internal pressures (like

the desire for increased job satisfaction, self-esteem, and quality of life).

Because adults have been conditioned through years of schooling to expect that the teacher and

the institution is responsible to teach them, when they return to that setting they often come

with an attitude of "teach me." But giving them what they expect causes conflict with thenincreased sense of self. The internal conflict can lead to disregard for the educational

experience. The methods of instruction should be varied and engaging since success depends on

the students' interest.

Shaping critical thinking.

Brookfield (1987) discusses a general philosophy to model and reinforce critical thinking.

Guidelines to consider in the development of instruction include what a teacher can do: be

critical teachers, model critical thinking, be willing to take risks, affirm the critical thinkers' selfworth, listen attentively, demonstrate support to critical thinkers' efforts, reflect or mirror critical

thinkers' ideas and actions.

Tempering expectationsfor course results.

Altering the ways people think will initially cause delays and more effort to solve

problems. New ways of thinking will cause interference with in-grained, 'tried and true' -but

limited- ways (Carlson, Khoo, Yaure, & Schneider, 1990). The assumption is that over time, a

person will adopt the heuristics that are useful, if they are perceived initially as having merit; are

memorable or periodically refreshed; and if the desire exists to improve.

Demonstration of "learned behaviors" will be difficult to observe, because only over time

will new "philosophies" of thinking be applied in observable ways (the result of classroom

instruction and practice may result in second or third order effects with only subtle differences

in observable behavior or outcome). Cognitive instruction is similar to studying history. There

may not be direct parallels between the lessons learned from the Civil War and planning

mechanized armor operations in the 21st century, but projecting the past principles into a

current or future situation is still useful.

Research on ways of thinking is not well integrated; there are few straightforward

implications or simple directions for implementation. Voss, Perkins, and Segal (1991) point out

that one of the emerging understandings is that the knowledge base about reasoning (from

which instructors can draw their lessons) has been lacking. They continue, "[U]ntil recently, the

phenomenon of contextualized reasoning, as opposed to abstract mathematical or logical

reasoning, has received very little theoretical attention from psychologists The shift to

additional concepts of reasoning is only recently receiving attention in research and so far has

had relatively little application to classrooms." This proved true in the search of appropriate

concepts and materials for the Practical Thinking curriculum. The absence of materials implied

that the materials had to be constructed from scratch. Therefore, these first attempts should be

considered exploratory and provisional and assessed accordingly.

24
Review of Cognitive Instruction Programs

Cognitive instruction programs were reviewed for applicable approaches, description of

skills, and lessons learned in doing this type of instruction (Fallesen, Pounds, Breeskin & Saxon,

in preparation). Fifteen cognitive instruction programs were reviewed. The results from the

various programs were generally positive, but were not as substantial as would be hoped.

Positive results were indicated on some measures for some programs but not for other

measures. For example, positive results were indicated for the Odyssey program (Harvard

University, 1986) on the number of solution features and the amount of detail. For the

Productive Thinking Program (Covington, Crutchfield, Davies & Olton, 1974) positive results

were found on fluency, better ideas, and detection of anomalies but not on better overall

solutions. Nickerson (1984) puts the typical efficacy outcome in perspective.

[Educational evaluation is inherently difficult, and its results are seldom unequivocal;

program developers have sometimes been sufficiently convinced of the merits of thenapproach that they have not been motivated to attempt an evaluation themselves. . . .

Quantitative data on a few programs indicate that they produce modest improvements

in performance on a variety of tests of mental ability. They make it clear that no one

can yet assure the development of effective thinking skills in the classroom, but they

reinforce the conviction that the goal is a reasonable one and that progress is being

made in its pursuit. (Nickerson, 1984, p 36)

Bolstering skills and attitudes as general and as pervasive as those dealing with thinking is not

easy to do, and the absence of overwhelming efficacy should not be discouraging. Most of the

reviewed materials were targeted at younger students, and none of the existing programs had

the desired combination of skills identified from the propositions and recent cognitive theories.

The absence of existing cognitive programs was not unexpected, and reinforced the need for

developing materials specifically to try to enhance the skills of mid-career Army officers.

Identification of Cognitive Skills

There are several sources available for identifying cognitive skills including cognitive

instruction programs (Fallesen, Pounds, Breeskin & Saxon, in preparation), curriculum lists (e.g.,

Ennis, 1987; Paul, 1993), and cognitive model taxonomies (e.g., Guifford, 1967). These lists are

typically geared toward a very basic level. Some of these sources rely on formal logic contrary

to the naturalistic approach valued here, and some of the skill sets seem incongruous. So to

develop a more cohesive set for the purposes in mind here, skills were proposed as "thinking

questions."

The skills were formulated as questions about how a person understands, remembers,

reasons, and so forth. The above propositions led to the identification of an initial list of

candidate lesson topics (see Table 6). The questions helped to identify the skill or the process

that might be used to think about what operational situations are, what they mean, what goals

are important, and what solutions are possible. The second column in the Table indicates the

psychological field that provides subject matter from which to draw to build the instruction.

25
Table 6.

Problem Solving Skills Suggested by Reflective Questions

"Thinking" question Related construct

What is this situation? situation assessment, understanding

What is this situation like? analogical reasoning

What isn't this situation like? dialectical reasoning

What else could this situation/solution be? creativity

Any assumptions unneeded, new ones needed? hidden assumptions

What is the real problem? identification, definition, framing

What needs to be accomplished? goals, planning

What do 1 know about situations like this? assessment of own knowledge

How should 1 prepare for future situations? learning to learn

What don't 1 know that 1 should? using uncertainty

What do 1 still need to know? missing information

How can 1 remember? memory techniques

How could this situation happen? explanation-based reasoning

What constraints are there? constraint-based reasoning

What is likely? plausible reasoning

What should 1 know? learning to learn, attention, novelty

How to reason? consistency, clarity, counter-arguments

What is the solution? everyday reasoning

How should 1 think about this problem? metacognition

Summary ofrequirements.

The Practical Thinking subcourse is part of a process to determine (1) whether a

cognitive skills approach has any merit for Army officer development, and (2) how to implement

such a program. It appears that improving how people control their thinking does have an

influence on the quality of performance. (Cohen et al, in preparation; Fallesen et al., in

preparation; Freeman & Cohen, 1994). There are clearly cognitive skills which can be improved

(e.g., dialectic argumentation, mnemonic techniques, planning of time, and analytic methods)

(Covington, 1987).

Practical Thinking concentrates on conveying the importance of thinking skill, the

significance of correctable problems, and new concepts as examples to show that alternate ways

can be identified. Some of these different concepts may be found to be worthwhile by the

students. Although it may look as if more procedures are being offered, they are not meant to

be general, absolute rules to follow, but skills that are mental resources that can be applied in

the right situation. Problem solvers need to determine when deliberate thinking is appropriate,

26
plan to do it, and manage it as uncertainties are explored. The training materials should

provide guidance when the concepts should be useful.

A cognitive skills approach requires careful examination of how people actually think and

explicit identification of the skills to train. The basis used here were various propositions about

how people think and learn. These implied requirements were combined with questions that

guide our thinking to identify candidate cognitive skills.

27
Practical Thinking Lessons

Several aims were identified for developing the Practical Thinking material. Ultimately

we wanted to increase cognitive skills that would improve battle command performance. This

was something that the students would have to take primary responsibility for. Accepting

responsibility is largely a matter of understanding the need to change and improve. Attitudes

were addressed to encourage understanding of the Practical Thinking rationale, concepts, and

tools. The concepts were offered to impress upon students the importance to learn more than

simple procedures or subject matter knowledge that are presented elsewhere in their education.

Instruction stressed the students' desire to learn, to consider how they think, and to find and try

out tools for thinking. Lessons were centered around obstacles to thinking and concepts for

improving thinking. The instruction intentionally avoided the prescription of procedures for

thinking. The materials introduced concepts and techniques for performing certain skills, like

finding hidden assumptions. These concepts were used to illustrate different ways to think and

were not meant to be prescriptive.

For example, one problem with parochial and traditional views is that they keep new

ideas from being thought about, tried, and implemented. The instruction included historical

instances of parochial views and some of the reasons why they are held. Techniques were given

for taking multiple perspectives, such as taking on other person's views and attitudes to see

where they would lead, if they were true. Some components were included that were drawn

from the cognitive instruction programs that were reviewed. The efforts were geared toward

improving cognitive skill, especially metacognitive skill, informing about attitudes, and offering

tools, heuristics, or guidelines for thinking. The six lessons are briefly described in the following

text and in Table 7.

The lessons started with a general overview, covered creative thinking, thinking about

thinking, dialectical argumentation (possibility thinking), everyday and informal reasoning, and

integrative thinking about putting an encompassing picture together. The order of lessons was

selected to go from broad, familiar topics to more advanced and specific ones. The seven

Practical Thinking meetings were spread out throughout the Battle Command Course to

accommodate other course elements.

The topics selected for the first Practical Thinking lesson provided an Overview of the

purpose of Practical Thinking instruction, gave examples of the skills to be covered, and allowed

the students to start to reflect on how they think and how others might think.

The second lesson was on Multiple Perspectives. It was intended to support the MSF

course requirement to shift from the usual way of looking at things and to apply more creative

processes and solutions. Attitudes, general guidelines, and specific techniques for shifting

perspectives were presented and practiced through class exercises.

The third lesson was called Adapting to Situations and covered how the Practical

Thinking skills related to the tactical decision making procedures taught elsewhere in CGSOC

and how organizing one's thinking can be beneficial. A tool was offered for deciding how to

adapt one's thinking to the situation. This lesson was focused on metacognition, but several of

the instructors chose to provide more concrete discussions about making decisions under stress

conditions.

The next lesson was on Finding Hidden Assumptions. Finding hidden assumptions was

28
based on situation assessment research done by Cohen et al. (in preparation). Finding hidden

assumptions covered the problems associated with assumptions that are not apparent in a

person's thinking. Finding hidden assumptions opens up the range of possibilities for what a

situation is, what it means, why it might happen, and what to do about it. The nature of beliefs

and their relationship to assumptions and "facts" were discussed as were unstated assumptions.

A specific technique for finding hidden assumptions was discussed and practiced.

The fourth lesson was on Practical Reasoning. Practical reasoning covered the essence of

Practical Thinking, problems or flaws in practical argument (i.e., the debate that goes on inside

one's thought processes), standards of thinking one might use to avoid the flaws, how reasoning

is affected by attitudes, and six general tools as prompts for deeper thinking.

Integrative Thinking followed practical reasoning. It included discussion of the

characteristics of military expertise and stages characterizing different levels of reasoning

sophistication. The lowest stage is characterized by the deference of the thinker to a person or

other source (like published doctrine) in authority. This stage characterized the lack of critical

and integrative thinking. The highest level is characterized by the ability to put complex

understandings together in overarching views. The differences and similarities in levels were

demonstrated with a car buying example that everyone could relate to. Students were also

challenged to predict how someone at each integrative thinking level would respond to a tactical

scenario with high situation and goal uncertainty.

The original allocation of instructional time and number of lessons was reduced because

of other course demands. As a result, a planned lesson on expertise was dropped, and the topic

of expertise was included in the integrative thinking lesson. Also a final lesson on Skill Practice

was shortened and taught immediately following the integrative thinking lesson. These changes

and others caused the classroom contact to be reduced from a planned 17 to 12 hours.

29
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31
Overview

Practical Thinking is less concerned with the form and process of arguments and decision

making than it is with the practical application of individual knowledge to fulfill goals. So

instead of teaching forms of arguments or violations of those forms, or enhancements to

decision making steps, everyday thinking issues were addressed. These issues included the use

of relevant evidence, identification of goals, consideration of different or multiple possibilities,

and applying personal thinking standards, and so forth.

It is typical practice to use traditional models of decision making or reasoning when

developing instruction to improve thinking. The classical model for decision making refers to

the steps involved in generating multiple options, evaluating each independently, comparing the

results after all options have been evaluated and picking the option with the best overall score.

One major difference is that the classical model uses an analogy of a gamble where the decision

maker does not have control over the outcome. In tactical situations that is the purpose of the

decision maker to influence the situation for a favorable outcome. This difference by itself

should be sufficient to direct attention away from classical models, but there is also no empirical

evidence that use of classical decision theory improves performance (Beach & Lipshitz, 1993).

The standard model for reasoning is formal logic. In logic the emphasis is on the form

of an argument. Logical forms are simpler than the actual situations that we face and serve only

as an artificial form into which to translate our arguments and conclusions.

"Formal logic has as its primary unit of analysis the argument, a formal argument

typically consisting of two premises and a conclusion. A conclusion is valid if it

follows from the premises in a manner that is consistent with the rules of logic. In

addition, evaluation usually takes place by converting the premises and conclusion to

symbolic form, as 'AH A are B.' The examination of validity is thus content-free."

(Voss et al., 1991, p xiii)

The model assumes that knowledge is a fixed commodity, that perfect knowledge exists or can

be determined. But ambiguity does exist. Formal logic intends to help the process through

systematic organization. Too much systematic structure can be stifling. Formal logic can only

verify knowledge by causal or inferential chains. Putting the necessarily long formal, logical

chains together does not have much to do with how we actually think. Translating what we

know and what we want to think about into logical form becomes an unnecessary burden that

many are not willing to invest, considering the marginal return on the effort.

Informal reasoning provides a better model for Practical Thinking. It "involves

inferences, justifications of beliefs, and explanations for observations" (Voss et al., 1991, p xiii).

Informal or everyday reasoning occurs in real situations. In informal reasoning,

"the quality of the argument is not determined in terms of a set of rules that indicates

whether the conclusion is or is not valid; instead the quality is judged in terms of

soundness, referring to (a) whether the reason providing support is acceptable or true,

(b) the extent to which the reason supports the conclusion, and (c) the extent to which

an individual takes into account reasons that support the contradiction of the

conclusion (i.e., the counterarguments). . . . When an argument is evaluated in terms

of soundness, the contents of the assertions are important, and the conclusion and

reasons are not evaluated solely in symbolic form, as they are in formal logic." (Voss

et al., 1991, p xiv)

32
It is this very concern that the instruction on practical instruction addresses. The focus is

not on formal, logical reasoning, but on practical reasoning as it occurs more naturally and more

broadly in everyday and work-related settings. In a "logical" argument, the premises support a

test of the conclusion by providing reasons for accepting the conclusion. Logical forms of

argument are typically not concerned with the reasons supporting the premises. The premises

are assumed to be true. Rather, it is concerned only with the logical relationships between the

premises (e.g., given the premises are true does it follow that the conclusion is true?) (Moore &

Parker, 1992). Critical thinkers, instead, test the assumptions on which the conclusion is based

as well as the conclusion.

So this instruction is based on the consideration of thinking that focuses on content and

the plausibility of thought, rather than the more remote structure of the argument.

The second distinction of this instruction with other attempts is that it rejects the notion

of a single, universal procedure for decision making or problem solving. George Marshall

provides good advice regarding this point. In Infantry in Battle (1939) he writes, [thinking]

"ability is not god-given, nor can it be acquired overnight; it is a process of years." He believed

that the process requires experience solving many different types of problems, making clear

decisions, concentrating on the most important question at hand, and an elasticity of mind.

Experience and the direct knowledge we gain are instrumental for thinking, this lesson

also deals with attitudes that affect our thinking. The aim is to encourage consideration to how

we think and offer potential ways for self-improvement. The goal is not to control what we

think or how we think, but to help uncover how we think, how we could think differently, and

what ways to do it better.

Students are told not to expect miraculous changes overnight. It would not make sense

to diet only during a diet seminar or to expect that weight will be lost only during the seminar.

So it is with efforts to improve thinking. The effort and results will not be just during class time,

nor will thinking be improved just because of listening and practice in class. Improving thinking

starts and ends with deliberate effort to attend to one's thinking throughout everyday situations.

To become more in tune to how one thinks is primarily a process of becoming more

mindful (Langer, 1989). Mindfulness is contrasted with automatic behavior, where there is not

much of a thoughtful process. Mindlessness gets us into trouble. The experienced flight crew of

a 1982 Air Florida flight went through the manual pre-flight checklist and noted that the antiicer control was off (like it always was before). But in this case, Washington DC was

experiencing one of its worst blizzards ever and the plane crashed into the George Washington

bridge and the Potomac river, killing 74 of the passenger and crew. The goal of these lessons is

to become more mindful. By being mindful, better thinking habits can be developed that

through practice will be adopted as more natural, adaptive ways of thinking practically.

To become more mindful requires a process of being more explicit about what decisions

are made, which ones just occur, and which ones require deliberation. Being more explicit is a

process of isolating components of thinking (through introspection), considering them

individually, analyzing how they might be improved (with concepts, tools and techniques offered

in the lessons), and putting the skills together.

Practical Thinking was defined for this lesson to consist of the application of creative and

critical thinking skills to reason and reach conclusions about 'everyday' situations and problems.

33
Being creative has to do with considering unusual possibilities in understanding a situation and

generating solutions to problems. The critical part has to do with evaluating tentative

understandings, conclusions, and solutions from multiple perspectives.

The lesson exercises prompted students to think introspectively, to think about how they

think. One example was an attention-getting problem dealing with a clever NFL play. Students

were asked to explain why the play worked and whether it would work again. Another exercise

involved asking questions about a specific decision or problem that students recalled vividly and

had them describe the solution process in their own words. Different ways to assess the

different problems could be highlighted. For example, the different problems could be

compared across contextual features, types of information, clever solutions or insights, etc. A

third example was discussed that described the dilemma of a business executive. The problem

description included elements of the problem, the goals, possibilities for resolving the problem,

type of evidence or support for resolution, and various processes used to address the dilemma.

All of these exercises can illustrate nontraditional ways of describing problems, give students

some terminology to think about their own thinking. The everyday descriptions contrast with

the classical decision making and formal logic model. The point is not to suggest that

procedures prescribed by the classical models are not useful, but that they are not unique, not

necessarily complete and sufficient, and that there is not just one right way to describe and

improve thinking.

The final exercise was fashioned after an incident described by Woodward in his book

the Commanders (1991). In the real incident, the Filipino President requested bombing of their

own airbase when rebels had captured it and were using it to bomb the presidential palace. An

uncritical solution would be to decide whether or not to comply with their request. A better,

alternate solution (that was attributed to GEN Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)

was to redefine the problem based on the goal to keep the rebel planes grounded. Contributing

to this insight were Powell's knowledge that bombing might not keep the planes grounded and

that the use of force could backfire on the U.S. From the students' personal experiences with

this problem or from their familiarity with the actual event, a list of obstacles was generated that

prevent clear, Practical Thinking. One class's list of obstacles to thinking are those shown in

Table 8.

Table 8. List of Thinking Obstacles from Class

Victim of experience

Haste, jumping to conclusions

Stereotypes (regional biases)

Hidden agenda

Emotions

Personalities

Background

No end state

Wait for information to resolve uncertainty

Pursue only one train of thought

Another list was presented that more directly corresponded to the lessons of Practical

Thinking (see Figure 2). The similarities between the two lists were discussed and overviews of

the future lessons were presented. Summaries of the five subsequent lessons to the Practical

Thinking course are covered in the introduction lesson and presented in the following Tables 9

through 13.

34
ObstacI es

Narrow-mi nded

Thought habits

Taking for granted

Lack of critica

thi nk i ng

Lack a questioning

att itude

Failure to consider

important aspects

Pract i caI

Th i nk i ng

Lessons

Take mu11 ipIe

perspect ives

Adapt to the situation

F i nd hi dden

assumpt ions

Qualities of expertise

Practical reasoning

Integrative thinking

Figure 2. Lessons addressing thinking obstacles.

Overview summary.

The students are challenged in the introductory lesson to consider how they think.

Several exercises allow them to recognize obstacles in their thinking and in others. Practical

Thinking instruction can prompt a change in attitude to change thinking. But the actual change

and continuing effort to change is up to the individual. The "alternate" skills will have to be

tried to determine what habits of thought work best for them.

35
Table 9. Preview of Multiple Perspectives Lesson

Obstacle - Narrow perspective

Example of the problem - Using what you know best to respond to a problem, instead of

constructing a better perspective or considering several perspectives. (From the class exercise think

how to execute the bombing from a tactical standpoint instead of thinking about it from a US

national policy perspective or Panglossian rebel perspective or Panglossian civilians.)

Multiple perspectives -- What were examples of narrow minded thinking given in the problem or in

your discussions?

Goal - This lesson shows the importance for taking multiple perspectives and gives techniques and

tools for taking or forcing different perspectives. No one set of characteristics of thinking is

definitely right. (We initially assume that our way is right, but it might not be right for

someone else.) This lesson shows various ways to consider multiple possibilities.

Table 10. Preview of Adapting to Situation Lesson

Obstacle - Habits of thought or procedures

Example of the problem - Using the same approach to all problems, not adapting the approach to

the conditions of the situation.

Adapting to the situation -- Adaptation is appropriate when you face a novel situation and are

required to solve a problem. Everyday jobs require this. Adapting has to do with considering how

what we know about a situation can be applied. Plan what you need to think about and how to

think about it? Were these deliberate choices?

Goal - This lesson addresses how we can manage our thinking. (When we think about our

thinking, this is technically called metacognition.) Some of the important ways to adapt our

thinking are presented.

Table 11. Preview of Hidden Assumptions Lesson

Obstacle - Unrecognized assumptions, taking something for granted

Example of the problem - The U.S. "advisors" in the Panglossian (Filipino) problem may not have

considered what would happen if the Panglossian President would have denounced the US

involvement for especially aggressive acts such as bombing civilians.

Finding hidden assumptions -- Were unstated assumptions made explicit (e.g., how actions here

would affect national policy or international perception -- failing to help, appearing as the aggressor

had things gone bad)? Were alternatives to assumptions sought about what was happening or what

was likely to happen?

Goal - This lesson relates to ways to identify/uncover hidden assumptions and what we can do

when a previously hidden assumption raises its ugly head.

36
Table 12. Preview of Practical Reasoning Lesson

Obstacle - Lack a questioning attitude, solution-minded not problem-minded

Example of the problem - Deciding whether or not to adopt the requested solution, instead of

developing a better understanding of the problem and possibilities.

Practical reasoning -- Did you look for flaws in your reasoning (premises, conclusions) or others?

Apply 6 "quick start" questions: so what, what if, what specifics, anything unexpected, what else, is

there a weak link?

Goal - Instead of getting everyone to follow logical reasoning form, this lesson addresses various

ways that we actually reason. Based on what we know about how we actually reason we

can improve the soundness of conclusions, instead of the validity of them.

Table 13. Preview of Integrative Thinking Lesson

Obstacle - Incomplete view, failure to consider important aspects

Example of the problem - Not considering fully what bombing the air bases would mean for long

term U.S. interests; not considering what the cause of the rebellious acts might be, such as human

rights violations by the government against rebel sympathizers.

Integrative thinking - Did you try to put all the pieces together to develop a big picture? Did you

identify overarching principles to use? How were you able to deal with the ambiguity and

uncertainty?

Goal - This lesson addresses different degrees of integrative thinking and techniques for integration.

Relates to thinking directed at the right level (e.g., problem definition).

37
Multiple Perspectives

We often do not see what others see happening, or we fail to think of new solutions, or

do not judge solutions objectively-all because we are set in a way of thinking. One third of a

sample of newly promoted brigadier generals were evaluated as being extremely bright and selfconfident but also extremely inflexible (Campbell, 1984). Increasing our skill of viewing

situations and possible solutions from different perspectives should increase the accuracy and

thoroughness of thinking (Bransford & Stein, 1984; de Bono, 1970; Friedman, 1984). The

dangers of narrow perspectives are demonstrated in this lesson by discussing historical instances

of decision making (see Orgill, 1970; Reagen, 1987). Guidelines for taking multiple perspectives

offer the opportunity to increase the ability and inclination to take different viewpoints and

develop better understandings, and more directed solutions.

This lesson was expected to be especially fitting for the MSF students because of their

requirements to consider the implications and practices for weapon systems, staff organizations,

computer decision support systems, and doctrine for the year 2015.

Whenever we reason we do so from some point of view or frame of reference. Any

defect or restriction in one's perspective is a possible source of problems in reasoning. A point

of view may be too narrow, too parochial or may be based on misleading analogies. Taking a

different perspective can serve to test the appropriateness (the extent of fit) of the spontaneous

perspective. Taking several perspectives can test the boundaries of understanding and proposed

solutions, they can help generate new solutions for especially perplexing problems. This would

inject the element of surprise in tactical situations. Having broader perspectives allows one a

better chance of happening upon a better, fuller situation understanding, more practical

reasoning, understand other's views, and to be better equipped to meet varying situations

(Adams, 1986; Flesch, 1951).

This lesson explores the concept of thinking from different perspectives, offers ways to

help take new perspectives, and gives examples and opportunities to exercise multiple

perspectives.

Switching to a different perspective is largely a matter of attitude (Adams, 1986; Langer,

1989). By doing so one will counter the tendency to come to closure too quickly (Brightman,

1980). The quicker one comes to closure while forming a concept and the narrower that

concept is encoded, the less likely that the concept will be related to other concepts (see the

encoding specificity principle, Tulving & Thomson, 1973).

Once you see things in a certain way and when you finally have closure and definition, it

is hard to break that closure. This narrowed understanding is referred to as mind sets and

functional fixedness. Breaking the set or fixedness will allow seeing that a telephone can be

used as a music box, a screwdriver as a weapon, or a dime as a screwdriver.

The background reading for this lesson addresses the pace of changing techniques of

warfare. Too little adaptation and too much conservatism lead to rigidity of tactics which are

easily defeated. Too rapid experimentation may actually provide opponents with an edge,

because they can adopt and refine the advances by avoiding the early errors and high

development costs. Reagan (1987) gives many examples of traditionalism in the British

Admiralty, Army, and Cavalry, and relates some widely recognized failures (e.g., France's

Maginot line, the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor) into the terms of his theories.

38
One historically important example of narrow perspectives was the lack of anticipation of

the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Admiral Kimmel (Commander in Chief, Pacific

Fleet) and his staff suffered from what Janis and Mann (1977) refer to as groupthink.

Groupthink occurs when the leader and the group mutually bolster each others' misjudgments,

thereby protecting each other from discomforts of painful or unpopular decisions.

Janis and Mann note that Kimmel had

"considerable worry about his old policy and also about any new one that seems

capable of handling the threat that is challenging the old policy; he has no hope of

finding a better solution than the old policy, even though he now knows that it entails

some serious risks; finally he ends up reducing his conflict by bolstering the old policy

in a way that denies the importance of the challenging warnings. ... the decision

maker fails to engage in the full set of vigilant activities that normally are expected

when a person is confronted with serious, consequential choice. The search for

relevant information is extremely limited and is generally characterized by highly

selective attention. . . . New information to which the decision maker is exposed is

processed in a biased way, strongly influenced by wishful thinking." (pp 123-124)

There were a number of signals that they received, but each was dismissed (see Table 14).

Admiral Kimmel probably saw the potential dangers in loss of life, threat to security, etc.

with either alternative.

"What [he] failed to consider was a compromise alternative of a partial increase in

surveillance, with some dispersal of warships, cancellation of weekend leaves, full alert

of antiaircraft units, and other precautionary measures that could have increased the

safety of the fleet at Pearl Harbor without being exorbitantly costly." (p 124)

Admiral KimmePs and his staffs interpretations of the signals seem inappropriate given

what happened, but at the time they were repeatedly warned about the danger and recognized

the danger, but decided to do nothing about it. Regardless of how unlikely they thought an

attack would be, their flaw was not exploring multiple possible future situations and associated

safeguards.

The Pearl Harbor example illustrates an extreme example of a narrow and distorted

perspective. Additionally, there is the feeling that criticism of some aspect is an attack on the

institution itself. The antecedent conditions of groupthink are shown in Table 15. The

symptoms of defective decision making in group think are also indicated in Table 15. The first

three correspond directly to the issue of narrow perspectives. Wishful thinking in terms of

considering only the best outcomes may have been operating. The intentions of the enemy were

assessed in terms of what US Forces were doing and other possibilities were downplayed.

Additionally there is the feeling that criticism of some aspect is an attack on the institution

itself. This has a possible strong effect in the military.

Although there has been considerable analysis of groupthink and flaws in group settings

and policy setting, there has been less attention devoted to the psychological flaws of individuals

(outside laboratory situations). The cognitive dispositions of individuals that can lead to

problems in perspective include those discomforts identified in Figure 3. Thinking is driven by a

natural desire for consistency, economy, understanding, resolution, and closure.

39
Table 14.

Cues and Reactions by US Pacific Fleet Prior to Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor: Failure in Perspective

Cues Response

6/1941 -8/1941 Relations deteriorating Train personnel and supply outposts. Start

limited alert.

11/1941 More ominous warnings Discount warnings, conclude precautions are

satisfactory. Subsequent warnings were

discussed, but discounted.

11/24/1941 "War is imminent. Surprise

aggressive movement any direction including

Philippines and Guam" from Chief of Naval

Operations

No change in response.

11/27/1941 "An aggressive move by Japan is

expected within the next few days. Execute

appropriate defensive deployment" from Chief of

Naval Operations.

Prolonged discussion with staff about plans.

Literally interpreted message and since there

was no specific mention of Hawaii there was no

follow-up. Assumed Army units went on full

alert, but they too were still on limited alert.

12/3/1941 Headquarters gives warning about

Japanese order to destroy secret codes.

Interpreted the message to possibly mean last

minute war preparations. Since the message

referred to most and not all codes, they

concluded that it must be routine practice.

12/3/1941 Adm Stark indicates that the

President and Secretary of State believe that

Japan is preparing to launch a surprise attack.

No change in response.

12/6/1941 Adm Stark gives emergency war

orders to destroy classified documents. The FBI

reports that Japanese consulate has burned

documents for the last 2 days.

Adm Kimmel admits concern about the safety of

the fleet at Pearl Harbor. Staff convinces him

that the limited alert condition will be sufficient.

12/6/1941 Adm Kimmel's Chief of Naval

Intelligence reports that all 6 of the Japanese

carriers cannot be located.

Adm Kimmel's Operations Officer states that the

Japanese do not have sufficient force to attack

Hawaii.

The instruction also used examples from training exercises at the National Training

Center (NTC) and the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) to illustrate the problems that

follow from the lack of considering different perspectives.

An NTC example showed that a FASCAM minefield was not considered from an enemy

perspective (i.e., why the enemy would put a minefield there). Most people, even when they try

to take an enemy perspective, do not do it very well. The portrayal of the enemy is too

cooperative, the enemy does what we hope they will do, they do not think and react to us, and

often, the enemy's goals are not viewed as distinct from our goals. We think of the enemy's

possible actions from the viewpoint that we are trying to defeat him. It takes practice and

discipline to really put yourself in the enemy's place and try to devise ways to beat the friendly

forces.

40
Table 15.

Antecedent Conditions of Groupthink and Symptoms of Poor Decision Making

Antecedent conditions Symptoms of defective deciding

1. High cohesiveness. 1. Incomplete survey of alternatives.

2. Insulation of the group. 2. Incomplete survey of objectives.

3. Directive leadership. 3. Failure to examine risks of preferred

4. High stress with a low degree of hope choice.

for finding a better solution than the one 4. Poor information search.

favored by the leader or other influential 5. Selective bias in processing of

persons. information.

6. Failure to re-appraise alternatives.

7. Failure to work out contingency plans.

Another practice exercise used a

JRTC problem to put the student in the

opposing force's (OPFOR) situation.

Students were told that they were now to

consider themselves to be the Cortinian

Liberation Front (CLF), and the enemy is

the invading US forces. One advantage of

CLF is their troops are probably much more

proficient than the enemy on familiar terrain.

Fighting in the woods, across JRTC rotations,

the CLF has been able to achieve lossexchange ratios averaging 17 to 1. To help

direct their thinking as the CLF the students

are asked a series of questions:

Psychological factors

r v

Cognitive economy

Resolve understanding

Avoid tension

Consistency

Pride of ownership

"%

>

1 Perspective ]

Figure 3. Factors affecting perspective.

1. What are your goals?

2. What are your weaknesses and strengths?

3. What do you think the enemy will do?

4. What is the most dangerous thing the enemy can do?

5. What is your basic plan?

Instructors kept alert to see if students would slip back to the US perspective when they were to

be taking the perspective of the enemy. For example, did they use "enemy" to mean the CLF or

"us" to mean US forces?

Considering the perspective of others extends beyond the enemy. In the JRTC exercise

there are other people involved. The perspective of civilian villagers can be explored.

Considering their perspective could help plan the friendly force operation. Are the civilians

enemy? Are they like terrain, obstacles, or assets? What are their goals and fears? Also how

will U.S. civilians back home react to the operation? Or suppose the President has ordered this

operation. What are his goals? What does he want or not want to happen? For example, his

view may focus on maintaining support in the U.S. and avoid an embarrassing defeat.

41
Techniques for taking multiple perspectives.

Books on creativity and broadening perspectives suggest a variety of techniques to

improve your ability to take a different perspective. For example, there are methods designed

to break conceptual blocks (e.g., Adams, 1986; Barker, 1992; von Oech, 1983). These techniques

may be helpful to consider different perspectives. These techniques can help to teach a person

how to develop the habit of taking multiple perspectives. Thinking and reasoning skills are not

simply improved by pulling out a set of techniques and systematically trying all of them. Instead,

the techniques can help to take broader and more diverse perspectives appropriate to the

situation. Develop better thinking as a habit not as part of a checklist.

Putting yourself in another's place is only one way to broaden perspective. A variety of

other techniques have been devised. All the following techniques are designed to view some

aspect of the problem differently, to break a mindset.

1. Taking other's perspective.

We can try to take on other peoples' perspectives. Besides taking the enemy

perspective, another possibility is taking the perspective of a historical person, a senior

commander, or someone else that you know.

2. Devil's advocate

A form of critical thinking whereby you test the validity of a concept by trying to

attack it; then, see how it withstands criticism. It is similar to taking the enemy

perspective and trying to think about really defeating your own plan.

3. Shift attention or importance (Ackoff, 1978)

A good strategy of problem solving is to focus on controllable rather than

uncontrollable factors, but if solutions are not forthcoming, then shift from

controllable to uncontrollable factors; or, change the problem definition. Look at a

different aspect (e.g., force protection instead of swift destruction of the enemy).

Change the most important goal, e.g., near term or long term.

4. Change the entry point (Brightman, 1980)

Many times when you're trying to solve a problem you go down the same path, have

the same chain of thoughts, reach the same conclusions or solutions. If you begin

somewhere else you may come to a different solution. Backward planning is an

obvious method. If you keep trying to find a way from the current situation to a goal

and are not successful, try starting somewhere else (e.g., in the middle), and work

forward and backward. When wargaming you may go through the same sequence of

steps. Varying the wargaming method can give a fuller understanding of possibilities.

5. Change the scope of the problem (Brightman, 1980)

Magnify or reduce values in the problem; for example, suppose the size of an effect

was much, much greater than what would happen. Make a much simpler but related

problem to solve. Or remove constraints then solve the problem. Solve in detail

versus a more conceptual solution. Look at the problem from higher and lower

echelons. For example, view the JRTC situation from the platoon level.

42
6. Change the representation (Brightman, 1980)

If using a visual representation, try a mathematical representation. Or if the problem

is stated in words, try a diagram.

7. Reversal (Brightman, 1980)

Make a dramatic change in some aspect of the problem, for example, the goal.

Reversal example: You have built a housing development near an interstate and are

thinking of ways to reduce traffic noise. You could change the problem statement to,

"How can I increase traffic noise to the houses?" This would possibly produce some

new ideas on how to reduce noise. Another example, "How could fratricide be

increased?"

8. Fractionation/subgoaling (de Bono, 1970)

Break the problem into pieces, subgoals, or attributes. For example in the standard

problem "Unusual uses of a brick," you can generate more ideas by listing the

attributes of a brick, e.g., red, rectangular, heavy, porous, holds heat, etc., and then

listing uses for red things, rectangular things, etc. Break up the organization of a

whole thing among its components to try to look at something in a new way.

Fractionation could apply to exploring different staff organizations, principles of war,

or tenets of airland battle.

9. Hierarchical solution graphing (Butler, 1994)

First, the problem solver generates an initial list of solutions. Then the list is

organized with the goal of finding solutions that have something in common, a

superordinate category of solutions. Next, generate other solutions that belong in the

same superordinate category. Continue generating superordinates and subordinates.

This is a method of generating solutions that may be superior to brainstorming.

10. Analogy (Brightman, 1980; Gordon, 1961; Holyoak & Thagard, 1989; Keane, 1988)

The use of analogy means trying to draw parallels between systems. An analogy

typically uses a familiar system to help understand an unfamiliar one. Example: You

want to build a roof that reflects heat in the summer and absorbs heat in the winter.

You might ask, what do you know that changes color? How does it change color?

Sacks that puff up in a flounder gave the idea of white sacks on the roof that expand

and present a white surface when hot but contract and allow a black roof when it is

cold outside. Analogical thinking will be important to respond to novel situations that

Army units will face, e.g., applying tactical command and control procedures to help

fight a forest fire or logistical planning for hurricane relief or applying civilian

practices to new Army roles, e.g., chemical spill reactions for NBC incidents.

11. Incubation (Adams, 1986)

When possible, think about a problem hard. Stop, and let your thoughts about the

problem incubate. Wait a period of time without thinking about the problem, and

then try again. It is possible for a problem to get worked out unconsciously. Also,

conditions will change so that you do not necessarily follow the same (non-productive)

line of thought. Sometimes, for example, you may mentally block the recall of a well

known item. If you simply wait this block may go away.

12. Brainstorming (Glover, Ronning & Reynolds, 1989; Hayes, 1981)

This is a well known approach. Brainstorming is based on suspending criticism and

43
withholding judgment to help form creative ideas and letting weak ideas live long

enough to get stronger or to suggest better ideas. Ideas can be chained or mixed

together to come up with hybrid solutions.

Guidelines forperspective.

Beyond the twelve specific techniques there are other ways that perspective can be

broadened. The following common sayings also may provide help for broader perspectives.

1. Break out of your box. Don't become a prisoner to habit. (Anyone can look for

history in a museum, try the hardware store.) (The G2 relies on usual electronic

intelligence sources, but a commander might get different insight by talking to a local

truck driver.) Explore forced relationships: e.g., What if there was immediate

resupply? What does ammunition consumption rate have in common with the number

of enemy prisoners of war?.

2. Look somewhere else. Rearrange parts of the problem: situation, goals, solution.

3. Change what you call things and what label you think of them with. The switch could

lead to new uses and designs. (Instead of calling a door a door, think of it as a

passageway. If you call a class a seminar, it changes the focuses from passive listening

to active involvement. Call a computer network an information highway to conjure up

meaningful images of uses and techniques.)

4. Solve the right problem. Do not be satisfied with the first good answer. Bypass the

first good answer and find the second.

5. Break the rules. Slay the sacred cow. Rules can outlive the purpose for which they

were developed. (Example of old rules: need a force ratio of at least 3-to-l to attack,

must have 3 courses of action.) (Recall the saying about Frederick the Great: The

loss of the Battle of Jena in 1806 was attributed to him though he had died twenty

years earlier.)

6. Recognize opportunities, expect the unexpected. (Fleming's discovery of Penicillin

followed a series of opportunities. When the cultures of bacteria he was studying

died, instead of discarding them he took time to try to understand what had

happened.)

7. Learn from mistakes. (Edison found 1,800 ways not to build a light bulb. One of

Madame Curie's "failures" was radium. Columbus was looking for India.) What were

the biggest errors for you in the last year?

8. You don't always have to force it. Ease off. (For example, let sidewalk locations get

determined by foot traffic patterns.)

9. Trust yourself. (We are taught to guess what the teacher is thinking, implying that the

best ideas are in someone else's head. What ideas are in your head?)

The important thing to remember is that you usually should not pull out a list of

44
techniques and begin going through them when you have a problem. Perhaps if you are

stumped you might go to the list and deliberately try the techniques. Further, you might use

them when you are deliberately trying to develop different habits and are unable to generate

different perspectives successfully. However, if you are in a familiar situation, you probably will

not need to go through the list.

Attitudes.

The attitudes we have about problems are very important. Positive attitudes for

broadening perspectives include:

1. Consider opposing viewpoints. Be open to different perspectives.

2. Listen to your hunches.

3. Think like a kid, loosen up, be silly.

4. Avoid arrogance.

5. Maintain flexibility to shift perspectives.

Having the capability to shift perspective and doing it are perhaps the most important things you

can do. The techniques focus attention on exploring different perspectives and give some

mechanics for shifting. Individuals should try to find out how they can best broaden their

perspective habitually. The techniques can be used, or whatever else that can be devised. A

deliberate effort will be required until taking a broader perspective becomes a thinking habit.

Identifying narrow perspectives.

How does someone know if they are guilty of short-sightedness? Is it possible to go to

the other extreme? For example, maybe some people are so enamored with change that the

latest new concept is always adopted. This could lead to mounting investments in always newer

technologies and weapon systems. The cost and the constant change may cause too much

turbulence with minimal gain. (For example, should paper maps really be discarded in favor of

the latest incremental generation of computer-generated maps?)

What are the basic assumptions that you hold that you never challenge? Entertain the

thought that you might have a very narrow perspective in some area? What is it? (For

example, Armor systems are the primary killing systems on the battlefield.) Imagine what could

make armored force on force battles obsolete? What would make tanks obsolete? What would

make an officer's branch obsolete?

An exercise forperspectives.

The idea of infantrymen wearing power suits is as old as at least the 1950s science fiction

in Starship Troopers (Heinlein, 1959). Heinlein had infantrymen shot from spaceships in pods.

They would land on the planet leaping around as high as buildings and throwing nuclear bombs

like grenades. Students formed smaller discussion groups and were asked to design a 21st

century powered infantrysuit. They were asked to identify what perspectives went into the

various designs and what techniques were used. As they worked they were told to keep three

things in mind:

45
1. Be aware of parochialism.

2. Be creative. Use the techniques that were presented.

3. Think critically. Discover the problems and unrealities of the developed concepts.

After working on the design, each group briefed considerations that they used and unique

features that were generated. They were asked to reflect on the sources of their ideas and how

any of the techniques worked that they used to create a different perspective.

Summary.

A perspective is required to think about a subject. We naturally think from some

perspective. Narrow perspectives lead to assessments and solutions that do not fit, are not

robust, and crowd out the potentially good solutions.

Changing perspective is useful to find a better understanding, what is possible, what is

not, what solutions are feasible, what safeguards should be taken, etc.

Techniques for taking a different perspective can be too sterile. The techniques need to

be practiced, personalized, and integrated into one's own thinking repertoire. The techniques

may be modified to fit the individual and combined to form hybrid techniques. Techniques for

changing perspectives will not overcome lack of experience, knowledge, and sound thinking.

The best way to start making perspective thinking a habit is to focus on a subset of those

discussed. One subset might be something like the following:

1. Take another's perspective.

2. Shift attention.

3. Fractionate.

4. Break the rules (what if).

5. Change labels of what we call things.

6. Identify similarities to something that is better known.

The way we think and our attitudes affect our perspective. They have both positive and

negative influences. Our thinking is characterized by a natural desire for consistency, economy,

understanding, resolution, and closure. These natural tendencies can cause narrow perspectives,

but recognizing the symptoms and knowing how to counteract them will reduce the negative

effects.

46
Adapting to Situations

This lesson was designed to provide insight on metacognition, i.e., thinking about

thinking. The lesson is titled adapting to the situation because it is a practical application of

adapting one's mental capabilities to the characteristics of a situation. This view indicates that a

problem solver must actively attend to his or her own cognitive strengths and limitations to

conform to the situation (Covington, 1987; Payne et al, 1993). Knowing one's mental

capabilities allows appropriate adaptation and application to the problem at hand (Metcalfe,

Schwartz & Joaquim, 1993). Adapting to the situation includes monitoring the processes,

strategies, and information one uses; identifying the most critical aspects of problems to be

solved; and deciding when to decide (Flavell, 1979). In relation to the definition of the art of

battle command, metacognition involves "knowing if to decide, then when ... to decide" and is

involved in the judgments about what to decide (Battle Command, 1993). As in the introductory

lesson on Practical Thinking, adapting to the situation assumes that improved performance

(primarily efficiency) can be reached by first making one's monitoring and directing skills more

deliberate, and through practice the skills will become more in-grained and available for routine

use.

This lesson should provide a general way of how to think when one is unsure of what to

think or what to do. The teaching points to be emphasized are twofold. The first is that

adapting to situations involves applying cognitive skills to the tactical decision making and

command estimate procedures for a command staff group. Thinking skills are ways to perform

the more general procedures. Since thinking processes make up the procedures, they are a basic

place to start to improve. Students should strive to improve their thinking skills so they can

better adapt to the pressures of combat situations.

Adapting to situations also means to think deliberately about how to think about solving

problems and making decisions. One concept to do this is decision triage. Decision triage is

deliberate attention given to what to decide and how to think. Three sets of questions make up

the decision triage technique.

The skills approach taken in this Practical Thinking subcourse is not advocated to

replace a "procedural" viewpoint. The skills approach is based on the beliefs that thinking,

reasoning, and deciding are situational activities that depend on the person, the environment,

and the task. Thinking can be improved beyond the formal, predetermined procedures by

matching one's thinking to the situation at hand. This lesson assumes that adapting one's

personal thinking-reasoning-deciding to characteristics of the situation is an essential thinking

skill.

"Only novices used algorithmic procedures to solve problems. Comparisons of their

performance with that of experts suggests that learning how to satisfy the intellectual

requirements of a job is not so much a matter of becoming efficient in running off allpurpose algorithms as it is in building up a repertoire of solution modes fitted to

properties of specific problems and particular circumstances. The variability experts

displayed was exactly that type excluded from formal models: use of different

component operations to solve recurring problems of the same kind. . . . Changing

solution modes reflected experts' concern with the how of performance and were

regulated by higher-order worker-evolved strategies for accomplishing the task in the

least effortful ways." (Scribner, 1986, p 22)

The introductory lesson on Practical Thinking addressed obstacles to thinking. One of

47
those was thought habits. Thought habits use the same approach to all problems, not adapting

the approach to the conditions of the situation. A thought habit (Adams, 1986) is a persistent

way of attacking a problem (that we are probably unaware of) that can be maladaptive (but in

some cases can be an effective way of responding). An example of a maladaptive thought habit

is taking the same strategy to prepare for a briefing, even though the approach never provides

enough time or practice. Adapting to the situation is a skill to counter weak thought habits. It

should make one more attentive to how a problem is thought through: Am I thinking about the

right things? Am I using a good approach?'

Considering doctrinalprocedures.

Established procedures are described in various command and staff instructional

materials, e.g., the 6 step problem solving model of CAS3, the 4 step estimate of the situation

(Joint Pub 1-02), the 8 step troop leading procedure, the deliberate decision making procedure

(DDMP) (Figs. 4-4 and 4-5, US Army, 1994), and the combat decision making process (CDMP).

There are many reasons that an organized procedure for problem solving seems to be a

good idea. One is that the problem solver has only one set of steps to learn and apply. The

notion is that the steps are universal and will result in a good solution to all problems of a

certain type. The procedure offers the inexperienced problem solver something to do that

seems useful. Another reason is that everyone in a group has the same procedure to help

coordinate what is done. It is useful for high certainty situations.

There are disadvantages as well. Either the method is so general that it does not

provide much specific guidance, or it is too restrictive and inappropriate for many problems.

The limited steps place the focus on the common elements instead of the unique key aspect in a

specific situation. Experts tend to spend the most time with the novel aspects (Bazerman, 1985).

The single method may be inefficient, requiring tasks to be done that are not important or

useful for a given situation. A procedure focuses on the form of problem solving while saying

nothing about context, substance, or knowledge. If the problem solver already has knowledge to

make an assessment, knows rules of thumb that apply, or knows a result that will work, then a

procedure does not provide any additional help. For example, some soldiers become so familiar

with certain terrain, that terrain analysis does not need to be done each time an operation

occurs there. Sometimes rules of thumb make good shortcuts, such as knowing that mobility

corridors can be estimated by looking at the pattern of vegetation coloring on western European

maps. Simply stated, there is no common procedure that is right for every problem or every

point in one's experience.

A systematic application of the deliberate decision making procedure is represented by

the multi-attribute utility analysis (MAUA) technique (Anderson, Deane, Hammond &

McClelland, 1981). MAUA is difficult to do well conceptually. It can fail to discriminate among

options (Fallesen, 1995). MAUA and similar "procedures" lead one to believe that a better

decision will result if he or she follows the explicit or implicit rules embedded in the procedure.

For example, the decision matrix runs the risk of becoming an end in itself, to complete all the

cells of the matrix and to make computations, leading to a sound, deductive answer. The

processing becomes more important than reasoning and at its worse replaces reasoning. The

decision matrix is no better than the individual judgments that go into it or the validity of the

identification and relationship of specific attributes and criteria that form the structure of the

comparisons (Payne, Bettman & Johnson, 1993). Analysis is relegated to linear, simple

48
relationships; the combination of relationships is not taken into account in any direct or explicit

way. Decision matrices can be useful as a communication and reporting device, but are

misleading when they are expected to generate an optimal answer. Experts seldom, if ever, rely

on decision matrix approaches (Beach & Lipshitz, 1993; Cohen, 1993; Klein, 1993).

Decision matrices may not fit the characteristics of the problem, especially ill-structured

problems that not only are characterized by uncertainty, but complex interactions and dynamics.

Decision matrices try to make decisions more systematic, but what is more important are

decision makers that can apply sound reasoning flexibly to meet unique and unexpected

requirements.

An alternate model oftask.

If concerned about how tactical decisions are made and how to improve the process of

making them, one can ask to what extent traditional decision making models are useful for

providing guidance? The procedures suggested by traditional models are not appropriate for

many tasks, including many combat decisions, and are not used. Traditional decision making

models limit the adaptiveness of one's thinking because they do not fit well with the dynamics of

combat decisions.

An alternate model is to consider the determination of tactical options as a planning

process. Planning is determining the way to accomplish some purpose or goal. A switch in

perspective shows that a rigid adherence to tactical decision making procedures may not be

adaptive to real battlefield conditions. There is a fundamental issue whether any gain is realized

in tactical planning by following the procedural rules associated with traditional decision making

models.

The current way of viewing the tasks is that decision making comes before planning.

Alternatively, it makes sense to consider the overall goal is to have a plan and that decision

making occurs while the plan is constructed and executed.

If a planning model is adopted, it does not mean that tactical decisions are not made.

Rather, it casts decision in a different light. During a five hour session of battalion planning

(Thordsen, Galushka, Klein, Young & Brezovic, 1989), the staff worked on 27 different

problems. In only one of those cases, were multiple options concurrently generated and

compared. In the other 26 problems, there were over 200 total decisions that were made for

choices that occurred in sequence during planning.

One of the reasons that the classical decision making models are not a good fit with staff

jobs is that they treat what is done as choice tasks. There must be multiple courses of action

generated, each assessed independently, and results compared to find the most favorable action.

This model is appropriate for some problems. But those problems are when options are given,

they are fixed, or they cannot be modified. In some everyday situations we are faced with these

kinds of options e.g., buying a refrigerator, voting for a political candidate, betting on a horse,

selecting a new employee. A model that focuses on selection of options should not be the only

decision making model that is used for guiding what commanders and staffs do.

Tactical decision making is different than the usual decision situations studied by

decision analysts. Technically, decision making involves the selection among existing options. In

49
many of the experiments on decision making there is little opportunity (or cause) to change the

options that are available. The systematic decision making models have little guidance to offer

on creating options or planning implementation, which are especially important for tactical

problems. In tactical situations the options and plans are under control of the decision maker,

and the goals may be constantly changing. Planning situations include things like planning a trip,

planning an investment strategy, planning indirect fires, planning the emplacement of minefields,

or planning a maneuver concept. In planning, the emphasis is not on which option is best, but

configuring a satisfactory solution. In a tactical situation there are too many options to consider

all in a systematic way. A planning perspective instead emphasizes finding a way that will

optimize resources and gains for subproblems that are identified during the process. The

thinking process is adapted to the mental effort that one is willing to put forth. Identification,

suitability, and feasibility of the options are thinking challenges for ill-defined problems. There

is important uncertainty about the current state and the goal state in tactical situations.

Understanding these states and their relationships to what is possible are important. Planning

proceeds from ill-defined understanding of the situation, and thinking determines what is

suitable.

Rather than a one choice process, there are many decisions to make along the way.

Some decisions are modifiable, some less so. There are not any rules that the classical models

suggest for what components (e.g., desired end state, deception, tactical maneuver, sector of

attack, use of reserves, etc.) to change to distinguish among options. Changes in formulation of

a tactical course of action (COA) can proceed almost infinitely. An optimizing decision

approach may not be the most efficient means of making global and localized decisions about

what a tactical option or plan should consist of.

Adapting skills.

This lesson assumes that people intelligently adapt and apply thinking skills to situations

that they face. Once they are skilled at it, they will be able to respond to a problem in a more

direct way than by following doctrinally set procedures that are generally targeted at beginners.

It is important to adapt thinking to situations. One way to adapt one's thinking

resources is to fill in the missing detail for group coordination steps. This adaptation deals with

applying one's thinking resources to the task and procedures at hand. From this approach,

thinking skills can be looked at detailing the way steps could be performed. A second way to

adapt is to adapt one's thinking based on particular style and knowledge to the constraints and

demands of the situation. This second way is sometimes referred to as metacognition. The first

way prepares one in advance by emphasizing versatility at skilled thinking. The second way

prepares for time compressed situations by increasing attention to how a problem is solved and

to make deliberate decisions about how to think.

Metacognition.

There are two generally different views of metacognition. One is more encompassing,

making cognition a subset of an executive process (Sternberg, 1986). The other bounds

metacognition more clearly so that it is not a superset but a different mode of thinking about

how to think (Brown, 1978). Metacognition is important because it is a mental operation that

occurs that can moderate the natural recognitional process. Calling attention to metacognition

50
makes it more explicit so students can become more aware of it and it can be practiced. Table

16 shows some activities of metacognition, organized into those components that have primary

influences from external sources, characteristics of memory, and how operations are regulated

(Essens, Fallesen, McCann, Cannon-Bowers, & Doerfel, 1995).

Table 16.

Metacognitive Skills

Metacognitive

Issues

Focus of

Metacognition Activities

What are the

external

influences?

Constraints. Assess time available, stakes involved, and confidence.

Apportion time and attention.

Know when to make decisions.

What are

resource

limitations?

Knowledge. Know what they know and what they do not know.

Gauge difficulty of problems.

How are

processes

regulated?

Operations. Goal-driven, thinking at the appropriate level of the goal.

Plan ahead.

Screen options.

Check solutions against hypothetical situations. Refine solutions.

Evaluate consequences of decisions, use feedback appropriately.

Adapting to the situation is like time management or meeting management, where a

number of principles are applied to make a meeting go smoothly and stay focused. That is what

adapting to the situation is about, assessing one's own personal abilities and situational

demands, so thinking effort can be allocated to external demands. Everyday examples of

metacognitive questions and strategies include the following.

1. Asking, 'Do I know enough about this material to pass a test? To remember it for

later use?'

2. Adding a column of figures a second time to see if you get the same answer.

3. Skimming a set of instructions (assembling a bicycle, setting a VCR, learning new

computer software) to get an idea how much mental effort will be required to

understand and perform the operations.

4. Knowing that you are late for appointments so you set your watch ahead.

5. Knowing that you have difficulty remembering names, so upon being introduced to

someone new ask for how their name is spelled.

6. Knowing you are good at applying 'so what' or 'what if questions to new concepts so

you consciously take on this role in meetings.

7. Paraphrasing what people say to check that your understanding is correct.

For Battle Command, guiding thinking is deciding about decisions (see Figure 4). Battle

Command material describes types of decisions made at different levels of command. All

commanders and staff must decide what to think about.

The idea behind deliberate metacognition is to look at external factors that make a

difference, how you think about a situation, and to manage your (mental) resources to think

about the problem. To do this you can monitor how you are thinking, and you can plan how

you think.

51
Decisions about decisions

All commanders Intent, concept & resources

Strategic Allocate means for subordinate Cdrs

Fires

Maneuver

Terrain

Combat multiplier»

Operational Committing the force Into battle

Size and commitment of reserves

When to exploit success

How to maintain force security

Tactical Execute specific missions

When to shift the main effort

When to change priorities

When to reinforce

When to request additional forces

When to disengage

If to decide?

When to decide?

What to decide?

How to decide?

Figure 4. Commander's decisions.

.«4« adaptive technique.

For adapting our own thinking, we

can apply standard questions in a triage for

decisions. This decision triage is based on a

set of reflective questions called the quick

test (Freeman & Cohen, 1994). This test

proposed similar questions to the set here

called FITE. "FITE" directs attention to

several important questions about a situation:

1. How Familiar am I with this

situation? (What do I already

know?)

2. How Important is the outcome?

(What is at stake, what is at risk?)

3. How much Time is available to

make a decision or solve the problem.

4. How much Effort is required to address the problem?

Two additional questions are added to expand the mnemonic to GO-FITE-WIN: GO stands for

considering the Goals and Obstacles in one's thinking, and WIN stands for the question, 'What's

Important Now?'

Examples of the FITE questions for decision triage are explained:

FITE

Howfamiliar am I with this situation?

If you are very familiar, you will likely be capable of responding quickly. You might

not even recognize the situation as a problem or that a decision is being made. For

example, encountering a detour on your normal route to work, you decide the quickest

alternate route is to turn one block early to avoid the problem, instead of following

the official detour route.

If you are not very familiar, then you will need more time to gather more information

or to generate and think through a solution. You will be required to use different

processes/strategies depending on your experience and knowledge. You might need

to take some action, try something so you can find out what you need to know. Is

someone more familiar and capable of responding to the problem; if so, then is it

appropriate to have them do the thinking?

How important is the outcome?

If the situation is very important, then you need to give that situation your utmost

attention. Do the stakes of various problems differ? What are the risks involved in

developing a bad solution, in doing nothing at all? Give your attention to the

problem/situations with the highest importance or that are most critical. Assessing

importance to determine what to think about is metacognition.

52
How much time is available before a decision or an action is required?

Among all decisions or situations with which you are faced, which is most pressing? Is

time sufficient or has the latest window for decision or action already passed? Often

we think about what is most immediate instead of what is most important.

How much effort is required?

If a very precise response is required, a more careful thinking process is needed and

more effort is required. Likewise if the problem is very complex, more effort will be

needed to create a good understanding of the problem and possible solutions. If the

window of acceptable responses is wide (and magnitude or chance of error low), then

any of a number of responses may be appropriate. Requirements for accuracy have

direct trade-offs with the amount of effort required. High accuracy typically demands

higher effort.

These FITE questions are like a triage for what to pay attention to--a decision triage.

They provide the basis for adapting your thinking to important situational discriminations. The

answers to the questions are based on your judgment of these considerations taken in absolute

or relative (one decision situation compared to another) terms.

Two other sets of questions are useful for planning and guiding your thinking. What are

the goals and obstacles for thinking about this problem (GO)? What's important now (WIN)? A

decision triage worksheet is provided in Figure 5.

This technique does not come without some possible disadvantages. Planning how to do

thinking takes time away from thinking. Also there are not always clearcut answers to these

questions. Decision triage raises questions to think about, but absolute rules do not exist for

making the trade-offs. Many factors can impact what and how to think. FITE are some that

have been found to be more important.

The advantages of the technique include its aim of identifying and organizing the

required thinking, the increase in thinking efficiency, improved likelihood of sound reasoning, an

audit trail tracing what you are doing, identification of shortfalls in what you do not know but

need to know.

Other adaptive questions can be used in goal-based thinking. For example,

1. What is this (situation, problem, solution)?

2. Is a decision even needed? When is a decision needed?

3. Does this problem remind me of something else?

4. What is the problem not like (or what doesn't the problem include-boundaries)?

5. What is the "real" problem?

6. What needs to be accomplished?

7. What do I know? What don't I know? What do I still need to know? How could this

happen? What are the constraints?

8. What is likely? What is the solution? What should I learn for the future?

9. How can I remember?

10. What else could this be?

11. How to reason? How do I represent what I think about?

53
Goals

Obstacles

Low High

Familiarity

Importance

Time available

Effort

What's important now?

Goals and obstacles: What are the goalsof your thinking (what doesyour thinking need to accomplish)? What are

the obstacles that prevent you from immediately thinking of a solution?

Familiarity: Is the situation unfamiliar, should you apply critical thinking to find if there are problems? Are there

parts of the situation that are familiar; how can known solutions be used or improved upon?

Importance: Is this situation or problem important? If there are multiple problems,which problems are most

important? Who has the most at stake to gain or most at risk to lose?

Time available: How much time is available before having to commit to a decision? Is there any strategyor decision

that would maximizeyour freedom of action?

Effort: How much mental effort would it take to identify or resolvethe problem? How much accuracy or precision

is required (or alternatively, how much room for error is there)?

WIN: Rememberto focuson what's important. How shouldthinking be directed to the most important things?

(Don't ignore difficult problems,don'tjust solvethe routine, easy problems;don't rush to a solution without

considering what the real problem is.)

Figure 5. Decision Triage: A concept for adapting thought to the situation.

Guidelinesfor when to use FITE.

FITE or alternative questions are potentially useful throughout our thinking (see Figure

6). They are useful when training and studying. During this preparation phase they might help

determine what the strengths and limitations of your thinking are. You might determine

guidelines to apply during performance (such as a SIMEX) to counter recently identified

limitations. Metacognition is the thought process by which such guidelines (or heuristics) are

addressed.

FITE questions are applicable during performance when starting a problem or when

54
noticing a new set of conditions. Also when

progress is not proceeding at a rapid enough

pace you can apply them, e.g., What progress

have I made? Is it as bad as I thought? Should

I consider some other way of thinking? FITE

questions are also useful during review of

performance to assess what was learned, what

problems in thinking, remembering, and

learning have been experienced.

Application of Adaptive Thinking Skills

Strengths &

itat ions

Trai n & prepare

Perform

/

Rev iew

J

01

~\

c

M

C z

sz 5

\- uu

1-

o> u.

c

"0

O

a

3

13

J

Figure 6. Application of metacognition to

learning and performance.

Summary.

Adaptive thinking has been

considered from two points of view. One was

how to adapt (or apply) the Practical

Thinking skills to current arrangements of

tasks and procedures. Thinking skills are not

alternatives for doctrinal tactical decision

making procedures. They offer more detail

to address important things to be done.

Considering other models than the classical

decision making ones, shows the importance

of planning and other cognitive skills. The

second point of view on adaptation is to

adapt (select, control, and regulate) our

thinking to the problem at hand. The first

point of view is about arranging tasks, and the second point of view is about arranging thoughts.

Both of these views indicate the importance of improving one's skill to adapt to situational

demands.

There are many useful questions to direct our attention and monitor our progress or

capability to think (managing our time for thinking, thinking ahead, decision triage, etc.). These

questions are addressed by being sensitive to situational factors and one's own knowledge and

thinking capabilities. Also three sets of questions, called the GO-FITE-WIN test, were proposed

that can be used for decision triage in any situation.

The critical point to remember is to be willing to spend relatively large amounts of time

on high-level planning on what problems to address (Covington, 1987; Pressley, 1986). Often

people impulsively jump into tasks before they are ready to solve them, either they solve the

obvious problems, the easy problem, the wrong problem, or re-apply familiar solutions. Many of

the most important decisions are made at the beginning of the process (what problem is

identified, what strategy to use to solve the problem, what is attended to). One's prior

knowledge should be fully used to plan and allocate one's thinking.

55
Finding Hidden Assumptions

The lesson addresses when a person thinks about a problem taking certain beliefs for

granted. These can be referred to as hidden assumptions or as presumptions. An assumption is

considered to be something taken to be true without proof or demonstration, while a

presumption is the acceptance or belief based on reasonable evidence. We often do not realize

that we are assuming something to be true. Assumptions which are used implicitly in one's

thinking processes often go unrecognized and can hamper reasoning. Improving thinking

depends to a large extent on finding ways that judgments may be incorrect. The lesson explores

the dangers of unrecognized assumptions using a case study on the Bay of Pigs (Neustadt &

May, 1986), and practical exercises demonstrate techniques for discovering hidden assumptions.

This lesson provides a technique for revealing assumptions and how to consider them

(Freeman & Cohen, in preparation).

Some key points to remember are that

1. One of the most dangerous biases in reasoning is to treat assumptions as beliefs.

2. Finding hidden assumptions can be stimulated by using dialectical reasoning,

identification of counter-arguments (or alternate explanations), or the "crystal ball" as

the perfect intelligence source.

3. There are various ways that we can react, once hidden assumptions are identified.

These ways include reasoning about the plausibility of alternate explanations and

knowing how to react to plausible assumptions.

4. When we receive information that does not conform to our expectations, we often

ignore it or pay little attention to it. This lesson provides a way to handle unexpected

events. The most important aspect is to keep track of unexpected events. Individually

they may be easy to disregard but several unexpected events may be cues to significant

misunderstandings or miscalculated courses of action. We should try to generate

explanations consistent with current assessments, consider the plausibility of the

explanations, and consider changing the overall assessment when explanations are no

longer plausible or simultaneously true.

Military decision makers constantly face uncertainty. Practical Thinking involves using a

creative and critical eye to explore possibilities and protect against unknowns. One way to deal

with uncertainty is to take multiple perspectives. Another way to deal with uncertainty is to make

assumptions that "replace necessary but missing or unknown facts" (U.S. Army, 1994).

Some assumptions are explicit. A battle staff knows what these are and may try to

confirm them, if they have time. Other assumptions are disguised as beliefs. A belief is having

confidence that a particular thing is true, as indicated by a willingness to act as though it were

true. "Assumed beliefs" are not explicitly stated. Hidden assumptions are not necessarily even

identified as explicit beliefs, but lay hidden somewhere in one's memory to cause something else

to be true. There are things that there is no reason to think otherwise about. We have them

because of our propensity to prefer closure and our ability to reason beyond what we know.

There is a 9 dot problem where the task is to draw four or fewer straight lines to

56
connect all nine dots without lifting one's pencil. The assumption is usually made by the novice

solver that he/she cannot go outside the outer most dots. To solve with 4 straight lines, one has

to go beyond the boundary that is "assumed" to be created by the outer most dots. To solve

with fewer lines, the solver needs to think even more creatively (like using fat dots and three zig

zagging lines, folding the paper to move the dots into a single line, rolling the paper into a

cylinder, placing dots infinitely close together and using a broad writing instrument). This 9 dot

problem can be used as an analogy to other problems where too many constraints are assumed.

Implicit assumptions often go unrecognized. We do not know that we are making

assumptions, and we do not realize how they might affect our thinking. Improving thinking

depends on recognizing assumptions and determining ways that our judgments may be incorrect.

One problem of hidden assumption deals with not adequately questioning what we

believe and why. A second problem is not wanting to change away from a belief that one has

already invested (consistency, confirmation bias). It causes less discomfort to disregard

information if it does not fit a model, than to thoroughly sort out what it means. An approach

is described for exploring either of these problems with hidden assumptions and beliefs.

The reading associated with this lesson discusses the lack of questioning assumptions

during the Bay of Pigs planning. Neustadt and May (1986) say that assumptions shape and

influence the understandings of a situation, the goals, and the plans.

There are types of assumptions: value-laden truths, maybes, and if-thens. "Truths" are

strongly held beliefs that may be impossible to assess truthfulness. "Maybes" replace necessary

but missing or unknown facts. "If-thens" are those conditional beliefs that are most open to

understanding.

Some of the hidden assumptions by the President and his advisors leading up to the Bay

of Pigs were that Castro would become more dangerous in Cuba, that Castro would become

Moscow's tool, and that Castro was taking Cuba away from the US. It was assumed that

Cubans on the island would be happily rid of Castro and that they would rise up in revolt.

Other problems included a misassessment that a "fair chance" to succeed was not a particularly

strong endorsement. Also many of the planners felt that the President would commit US Forces

once the operation began.

When to lookfor hidden assumptions.

When is it appropriate to look for hidden assumptions? Cohen et al. (in preparation)

propose the "quick test" that helps determine if there is enough time to consider other possible

relations and explanations. Looking for hidden assumptions can be done during situation

assessment, either the construction of a situation model when recognition is uncertain

(unfamiliar, time available, manageable effort) or when you wish to verify the results of

recognition (familiar but high importance, time available).

Alternatively, decision triage (GO-FITE-WIN) can be applied. If there is reason to

doubt the assessment then answer these questions: is importance high, is time available, how

much precision and corresponding effort are required? If the outcome is not important, there is

not time available, or there is not effort available to improve the assessment then one would not

look for hidden assumptions. But even being open to the fact that other possible meanings exist

57
can help. One may want to adjust or add to a course of action as time is available. Recognizing

that facts are possible assumptions may lead one to a different strategy, such as hedging,

delaying, or intensified search for confirming information.

Another indication that it is a good idea to look for hidden assumptions is when the

group blindly goes along without challenging ideas or considering a different perspective and

when they focus on confirming evidence. This is like Admiral Kimmel and his staff at Pearl

Harbor (Janis & Mann, 1977). They ignored warning signals so they would not contradict the

actions they were already taking.

Technique forfinding hidden assumptions.

Neustadt and May (1986) offer two questions to think more clearly about a situation.

The first was, "How much ofyour own money would you wager that the presumed thing actually

happens?" The other was referred to as Alexander's question: "What new knowns would bring

you to change things presumed?" In other words, 'what new information from anywhere would

cause you to revise or to reverse your judgment?' (Alexander's question was named because of

the individual that raised it during a 1976 meeting considering whether to immunize the whole

country against the swine flu.) The questions should flush out a deeper set of questions. These

are good questions, but the lesson emphasizes a different approach. Simply this concept asks

the question, What ifsome assumption (belief argument, conclusion, or assertion) were not the

case? This is similar to dialectic and what if thinking. The technique consists of four steps (see

Table 17). Exceptions are generated until they get far-fetched or there is no more time for this

step.

Table 17.

Finding Hidden Assumptions.

1. Select a critical part of the assessment -- even if there is high confidence.

2. Imagine that a "perfect" intelligence source (such as a crystal ball) indicates that this part

of the assessment is wrong.

3. Explain how this part of your assessment could be wrong.

4. Imagine that the crystal ball now tells you that your new explanation is wrong and directs

you back to step 3. ^^^^^^

Freeman and Cohen (1994) describe an example of the technique and what it produces

(see Table 18).

Detecting assumptions that are hidden is only part of the solution. A second part is to

consider the plausibility of counter-explanations. One might know in a given case that some

alternative explanation is not true; there is confirming data which indicates it is false. These

explanations no longer need to be considered. Assessing the plausibility of the remaining

explanations is a matter of judging the degree to which they could be true. Everyone can fall

into a trap of giving more weight to the explanations that they would like to be true. That is

exactly what this approach intends to counteract, to minimize what we would like to be true by

58
explicitly identifying counterarguments that have some possibility of explaining a different

position.

Table 18.

Example of Finding Hidden Assumptions.

Suppose that an assessment (assumption, belief, conclusion, etc.) includes the claim that

the enemy will cross the river at location x. The claim is based on indicators concerning the

distance the enemy must travel to his supposed objective, the shallow depth of the river,

and concealment opportunities along the bank. The officer is confident of this assessment;

however stakes are high and there is time to critique the assessment, so he does so. He

imagines the perfect intelligence source tells him that the enemy will not cross at location x,

and demands that this failure be explained. Cycling through steps 3 and 4 could generate

the following list of reasons why the enemy will not cross at location x.

The enemy anticipates that our force will be at location x.

The enemy will detect the movement of our force to location x.

There are good crossing sites that we missed.

The enemy doesn't have any river crossing assets; he can't cross the river at all. The

enemy's river crossing assets are so good that he can cross elsewhere.

The enemy has a large enough force that he can accept casualties crossing elsewhere.

The enemy's objectives are different; he doesn't need to cross at all.

The enemy will use air assault to get across the river, rather than cross it.

Another important point to recognize is the difference between building a case and

weighing evidence. Building a case tends to start with the conclusion and tries to defend it. In

weighing and judging evidence we draw a conclusion after all the evidence has been considered.

Since tactical situations see information continually come in, we must hold open the possibility

that an initial assessment is subject to change based on new evidence that is accumulated.

Sternberg & Lubart (1995) cite the same skill when referring to remaining open to new

interpretation of events as more information becomes available.

Handling unexpected events.

A similar concern is what to do when incoming evidence does not fit the current

assessment/understanding. Cohen et al. (in preparation) provide guidance for handling these

unexpected events. When we receive information that does not conform to our expectations, we

ignore it or pay it little attention. The most important aspect is to keep track of unexpected

events. Individually they may be easy to disregard but several unexpected events may be cues to

significant misunderstandings or miscalculated courses of action. We should track unexpected

events, try to generate explanations consistent with current assessments, consider the plausibility

of the explanations, and consider changing the overall assessment when explanations are no

longer plausible or simultaneously true. The steps for handling unexpected events are explained

in Table 19.

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Table 19.

Handling Unexpected Events.

1. Track unexpected events.

2. Try to generate explanations consistent with current assessments.

3. Consider the plausibility of the explanations.

4. Consider changing the overall assessment when explanations are no longer plausible.

The third step is to consider plausibility, but how should one determine the plausibility of

hidden assumptions or modified explanations. Possible actions to take are indicated in Table 20

(Cohen et al, in preparation). Table 21 gives examples for how assessing plausibility applies to

a logistics base example.

Table 20.

Assessing Plausibility of Events.

1. Accept the assumption as a known risk.

2. Conclude assumption is plausible (or an alternative is plausible).

3. Confirm assumption's truth by examining existing or gathered information.

4. Make assumption true through proaction.

5. Develop or adopt a contingency plan in case the assumption is false.

6. Develop understanding or plan that does not depend on the assumption at all.

7. Remain flexible until the future becomes clearer.

Summary.

It is important to reveal beliefs that rely on hidden assumptions and to test the

plausibility of alternate explanations.

In this lesson hidden assumptions were described, examples were provided for how they

have occurred in the past, and what kinds of problems they have caused. Neustadt & May

(1986) offered several ways of dealing with assumptions: explicitly look for presumptions

(acknowledge that assumptions exist), consider whether experience or history validates them, ask

the wager question, and ask Alexander's question.

An additional way of uncovering hidden assumptions was to apply the "perfect

intelligence source" (crystal ball) to force an explanation for something other than what is

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Table 21.

Plausibility Assessment Example.

Example assessment: You have concluded that your logistics base is safe from artillery.

Ways to assess plausibility Example

Verify assumptions.

Shape the battlefield to ensure the assumptions

are true.

Develop contingency plans.

Change the course of action so the plan no

longer depends on the assumption.

Change assumptions if a new explanation is

plausible. ^^

Gather more information concerning enemy

artillery range, camouflage methods, or close air

support.

Destroy lines of communication (LOCs) that

might be used to resupply artillery. Target

enemy air support bases.

Plan to defend against artillery shelling by using

locating radar and counterbattery fires.

Move the log base further to the rear.

Ensure air defense weapons are employed to

protect the log base.

assumed (or concluded). Exploring other possibilities gauges the strength of belief in an

assessment.

One common and particularly dangerous reasoning problem is confirmation bias, or

groupthink. A technique for handling unexpected events was covered to help counter

confirmation bias. Using elements of this technique, especially tracking and recording surprising

events will help discourage confirmation bias. Once alternate explanations are recognized,

plausibility assessment and ways of dealing with them need to be assessed. Plausibility is based

on judgment (experience, analogical, and inferential reasoning). Ways of dealing with the

uncertainties include recognition of risk, collection of information, proaction to establish

conditions, contingency planning, and maintaining the maximum freedom of action.

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Practical Reasoning

When curriculum developers look to see what reasoning is and how it should be taught,

it is not surprising that instruction turns to formal logic and rules. From a formal logic and

classical school perspective, reasoning includes the study of deductive and inductive logic. These

involve a closed system of thought; a focus on the form of links among knowledge, instead of

considering the knowledge itself as important. The formalism in formal reasoning is not a very

good parallel to the ways people naturally reason. Formal logic purports to be normative but

whether formal logic is used much is in doubt. Trying to understand everyday reasoning by

other than formal logic means is an alternate approach that can expand our ideas about how to

improve.

Everyday, practical reasoning is an alternate approach to formal reasoning. Chapman

(1993) explains that reasoning develops from resolving inconsistencies in beliefs. This process

begins at a young age as largely a social interaction when an inconsistency between an internal

belief (or concept) and the concept presented by another is noticed (Piaget, 1928). The

opposing beliefs are considered and the reasons for and against are weighed. We learn to

question and extend beliefs without external conflict, and we discover that reasons, like beliefs,

are subject to reevaluation. The process can be characterized as a dialectical process. In

contrast to formal reasoning where thinking develops from learning the rules of formal logic,

everyday reasoning is an internal process of argumentation. This model of thinking is

compatible with the skills covered in previous lessons: Multiple perspectives are different views

that may produce belief inconsistency. Adapting to the situation is the ability to notice

inconsistencies and to manage their resolution. Finding hidden assumptions is a dialectical

process of considering beliefs or assumptions as false, for the sake of testing the coherence of

understanding.

The identification of material for practical reasoning was the most difficult to determine

in this current series of Practical Thinking lessons. If formal logic along with deductive and

inductive rules are rejected and if everyday reasoning is a natural process of weighing evidence,

then what should be offered instead? The approach taken was to form the instruction around

five key teaching points.

1. Knowledge is paramount in reasoning. We do not always have knowledge. When we

do not is when we need to reason. We can reason to fill in our gaps of knowledge, to

conjecture what is important, what is possible, and what is unlikely. Learning more

and thinking ahead are also good ways to prepare for uncertain futures, but will never

completely prepare us. Uncertainty is a matter of course that we need to deal with.

Searching for more facts is not the only strategy for dealing with uncertainty. Practical

reasoning is appropriate as well. We can fill in our gaps of knowledge by creative and

critical thinking.

2. Standards ofreasoning can be applied to guide our thinking or to consider the thinking of

others. Five standards are the focus of this portion of the lesson. Consideration of

fairness, relevance, evidence, clarity, and consistency (FRECC) can help make

thinking more sound. Being aware of adherence to or violation of these standards will

lead to more critical thinking.

3. Understanding typical reasoning fallacies is the first step to lessen their occurrence. There

are many types of reasoning errors that have been described. This lesson focuses on

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six that affect our ability to generate objective conclusions from our experiences and

beliefs.

4. Attitudinal pitfalls can negatively color our thoughts, so the first line of defense is being

able to understand how our attitudes influence reasoning. Attitudinal pitfalls are

described that help explain our psychological and emotional predisposition and

reaction to events.

5. Six simple questions are provided to help get one's thinking off to a quick start. It is

appropriate to use these questions when faced with uncertainty, when there is an overwillingness to accept what we hear, or when there is a lack of critical thinking.

This lesson explores how we can improve our reasoning when a practical model is

applied. Instead of striving to reach perfect rationality and logical thought, practical reasoning

examines qualities of good and bad reasoning and provides concepts for reasoning about

unexpected events and other ways to guide our reasoning.

Characteristics ofpractical reasoning.

Practical reasoning deals with the construction, maintenance, use, and change of beliefs.

It involves the application of our knowledge to think about everyday problems that have

incomplete and uncertain information. We must use what we already know to think about what is

unknown. Instead of striving to reach perfect rationality and follow the rules of logical form,

practical reasoning examines qualities of good and bad reasoning and strives to reach sound

conclusions.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which war is based are

wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is

called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.

Carl von Clausewitz, 1976

Knowledge is paramount in reasoning. When we have knowledge that directly applies we

can try to recall it. (Recall one of the metacognitive functions is to assess whether we might

have knowledge about a particular problem we are thinking about.) When we do not have

knowledge we can reason to fill in the gaps of our knowledge. We can conjecture about what is

important, what is possible, what is unlikely. When we do not have knowledge we need to

construct understandings, explore goals, solve problems, and decide. Learning more and

thinking ahead are also good ways to prepare for uncertain futures, but will never completely

prepare us. Uncertainty is a matter of course that we need to get better at dealing with.

Searching for more facts is not the only strategy for dealing with uncertainty. Practical

reasoning is appropriate as well. We can fill in our gaps of knowledge by creative and critical

exploration.

Practical reasoning implies some degree of consideration (reflection and rationality) in

that conclusions are not reached randomly or arbitrarily. However, practical reasoning is in

contrast to organizing or testing reasons or arguments according to structured logical forms.

Practical reasoning does not preclude logic (i.e., is not illogical) but does not concern itself with

distinguishing between deductive and inductive logic and other principles of formal logic.

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Practical reasoning is a process of exploration, not linear deduction or after-the-fact justification.

Practical reasoning involves the assessment of plausibility.

Practical reasoning, like Practical Thinking, is something we all do. The assumption here

is that reasoning (like learning) can be improved if it is made more explicit. This approach does

not assume classical, formal theories of logic would be the basis to be more explicit, neither does

it assume that everyone uses or should use the same process.

'Standards ofreasoning."

This subcourse on Practical Thinking intends to emphasize the importance of being

mindful and deliberate thinkers--but not necessarily analytical. Another way to improve our

thinking and reasoning is to have "intellectual standards," principles of sound thinking against

which individuals can check their own reasoning and that of others. The standards have been

drawn from Paul (1993).

There are five standards that have been selected for discussion. These standards

overlap, and although they are presented as standards for thinking they equally apply to

standards for communication and group discussion. (The acronym, FRECC can be used to help

remember them.)

Fairness - treating both or all sides alike without reference to one's own feelings or

interests; impartial and unbiased both imply freedom from prejudice; objective implies a

viewing of persons or things without reference to oneself, one's interests, etc.

Examples of fairness - (1) Even though the commander was inclined to favor his former

battalion and give priority of fires to their breaching operation, he knew that protection

of the flank was key and assigned first priority to the cavalry. (2) Putting a spin on the

information (also known as framing):

'The liberal congressman piteously whined ...'

'The conservative congressman staunchly proclaimed ...'

'bold, audacious'

'hesitant, cautious'

'calculated risk'

'reckless abandon.'

Aid - Be a critical thinker, look for information that goes against one's own inclination,

seek other viewpoints.

"We often mistake fluency and argumentation for thinking skill. Fluency and the power of

coherent expression are tools of thinking, not thinking itself. . . . Very able pupils usually

react to an idea by making an initial judgement ('I like it', 'It will never work' and so on).

They then use reason and skilled argument to back up that initial judgement. The argument

may be flawless, yet the thinking may be appalling because it includes those major perceptual

errors of looking at only part of the situation or ignoring the magnitude of effects. We also

confuse debating skills with thinking: 'I can prove you wrong, therefore I am right.'"

(de Bono, 1976, p 15)

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Relevance - bearing upon or relating to the matter at hand, implies close logical

relationship with, and importance to, the matter under consideration, (germane,

pertinent, applicable).

Example - Irrelevance: A commander predicts that the enemy is likely to use chemical

munitions in their withdrawal even though they never used them in their attack, because

they are aggressively using smoke screens. Relevance: A commander predicts that the

enemy is likely to use chemical munitions in their withdrawal even though they never

used them in their attack. The reasons given include that their forces would not have to

cover the affected area and the enemy's doctrine considers chemical warfare a last

resort.

Aid - Ability to judge relevance can be developed with practice distinguishing relevant

from irrelevant data, evaluating or judging relevance, arguing for and against the

relevance of facts and considerations.

Evidence - Conclusions should be well evidenced. Critical thinkers distinguish the

evidence or raw data upon which they base their interpretations or conclusions from the

inferences and assumptions that connect data to conclusions. Uncritical thinkers treat

their conclusions as something given to them in experience, as something they directly

observe in the world. As a result they find it difficult to see why anyone might disagree

with their conclusions. After all, the truth of their views is, they believe, right there for

everyone to see!

Example of lack of evidence - Suppose one makes the argument that, 'We should join

country X's fight to counter left-wing extremists because diplomats from X have

requested military assistance.' (This argument has weak evidence because it relies only

on complying with a request. The argument does not include evidence about the

country's own ability to cope with the threat, whether the threat is any less favorable to

world or national interests than is country X.)

Aid - Be aware of arguments that provide little or no evidence or evidence that comes

only as value-laden, symbolic examples or broad generalizations. Recognize fundamental

parts of conclusions that are assumed to be true, but for which contrary evidence might

exist. Spend a comparable amount of effort to think of evidence against preferred

choices or reasons in favor of nonpreferred choices. Apply the "perfect intelligence

source" if it helps to generate additional explanations that broaden understanding.

Clarity - made easier to understand, to free from confusion or ambiguity, to be precise.

Clarity is the opposite of ambiguity. Clarity can be considered with understandings,

problem states, goals, means, and constraints.

Example of lack of clarity - Consider that a mission was to drive the enemy from a

bridge. If given this mission, it is unclear what to do if there is no enemy at the bridge

(find enemy somewhere else to attack?).

Aid - Explore what you mean and what others mean. Be precise and recognize when

you are unclear about terms, even in your own thinking. Use redundancies in

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communication to help clarify meaning, and clarify by indicating what you do not mean

(not just what you mean). Use standard terms (defeat, destroy, attack).

Consistency - to think, act, or speak in agreement with what has already been thought,

done, or expressed (or to identify explicit differences from previous positions). We often

shift our meaning or interpretation as we think about a problem, or we inconsistently

apply rules, rationale, or policies. Consistency goes hand in hand with coherence. A

consistent argument (or consistent reasoning) will be cohesive and sensible across the

range of thoughts to which it is applied. Human life and thought are filled with

inconsistency, hypocrisy, and contradiction. We often say one thing and do another,

judge ourselves and our friends by one standard and our antagonists by another, lean

over backwards to justify what we want or negate what does not serve our interests.

Examples of inconsistency - (1) You see an advantage to COA 1 (which you have

developed) as achieving a favorable combat power ratio. Although a similar advantage

exists for COA 2 you ignore this or give it less consideration and concentrate on looking

for evidence against COA 2. (2) Another source of inconsistency is not treating tradeoffs appropriately. For example, a commander that calls for conflicting actions is not

being consistent: 'I see a bold rapid action while maintaining maximum force security.'

Aid - Basic assumptions must be analyzed to evaluate the existence of inconsistencies.

(Refer to the finding hidden assumptions lesson.) It is not necessarily a problem to be

inconsistent, if you have become more precise by revising your meaning, if you have

recognized the shift, and if you check to see what affect the shift has had on other

conclusions.

Avoid errors.

There are two general categories of errors. The first type are fallacies of argumentation

or reasoning, and the second are psychological or attitudinal pitfalls. The psychological pitfalls

provide reasons why errors are made (intentionally or unintentionally), while the reasoning

errors show misuses of logic. The following are examples of errors and are not a complete list

of reasoning errors. If the errors are explicit so they can be identified, then you can be more

alert to them so that they do not creep into reasoning. Also remember that the presence of a

fallacy does not mean that a conclusion is false.

Fallacies.

There are numerous fallacies associated with logic (e.g., Michalos, 1986; Moore, 1967;

Walton, 1987). For Practical Thinking the interest is in studying fallacies, not so to argue with

others, but to avoid these subtle flaws in our own reasoning. Often when we are faced with

unknown alternatives or seemingly equally good conclusions, we analyze the merits of one

position over another by 'arguing with ourselves' to see which arguments or beliefs are strongest

or weakest. The following are some particular fallacies that might affect this internal

argumentation or judgment.

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The aid for each of the fallacies is the same. It is to know the possibility of the error, to

be alert to them, and to think critically with the standards established. The "scientific method" is

another way to guard against the mis-assessment of events by using such practices as controlled

observation, known samples, and predictions of outcomes. Specific concepts can be developed

to follow objective habits of thought, like searching for hidden assumptions and handling

unexpected events.

Magnitude error - When a claim is made that something will affect something else, this

may be logically true, but the effect will not happen or will not happen to the extent

implied. Unless one actually knows the magnitudes involved it is easy to construct an

apparently logical argument which is nonsense. A magnitude error cannot be identified

by looking at the form of the argument; it is detectable only if one already has a larger

base of knowledge in which to assess the argument.

Example - Economic sanctions are thought to cause a country to end aggressions with a

neighboring nation, but actually the magnitude of the effect is quite insignificant.

Consider the advertising claim: 'Antiseptics kill germs. Germs act on decaying food to cause

mouth odour. If you use an antiseptic mouthwash you will have fresher breath.' This all

seems very logical. But the magnitudes are quite wrong. The antiseptic is diluted so quickly

in the mouth that it will kill germs for only a minute at most. Germs multiply so quickly

that they will replace themselves very rapidly. In any case the concentration of antiseptic

that will kill germs in a test-tube in the laboratory is very different from the concentration

obtained in a mouthwash.

(de Bono, 1976, p 73)

Lack of knowledge - (also known as ad ignoratiam), conclude a proposition is false

merely because the truth has never been established.

Examples - (1) Suppose you conclude that a proposed river crossing will be unopposed

because there is no information about the enemy being anywhere in the area. You

might fall into the trap of concluding that the enemy is not present because there are no

reports of enemy activity, but there may be no reports because there are no intelligence

requirements or sources focused on that area. (2) Sometimes the proof or denial of a

claim is shifted to the critic, e.g., the S2 states that the enemy is preparing for a

counterattack because of the disposition of enemy reserves, but the executive officer

(XO) claims that they cannot be counterattacking because he does not think that would

be practical. The XO passes the burden of proof back to the 2, stating 'prove me wrong,'

while he has not provided any evidence to support his claim. The XO is using a lack of

knowledge argument.

False dilemma - this or that, exclusive thinking when a position is stated such that one

has to choose one of two or more alternatives (usually the choices are all unpleasant or

stated in emotional terms such that the preferred one is obvious). The fallacy comes

about because there is the assumption that one of two or more positions must be true.

Examples - (1) 'Without money to continue college, I'm going to end up in the gutter.'

(2) 'We can continue with the plan or try to change horses in midstream.' (3) 'The

enemy attacking our flank has to be taken care of by the Cav or with artillery.'

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Hasty generalization - an observation is inferred to apply to a larger set of instances from

a single observation or a small number of cases.

Example - Hooker, Commander of the Army of the Potomac, assessed that Lee was

withdrawing when he was told Jackson's Corps was moving South when, in fact, Jackson

was moving around his flank to attack Hooker's rear.

Hindsight bias - the knowledge of events after a decision or action shifts or recreates the

memory of prior expectations and predictions, so people think they are more accurate

than they really are and fail to learn what actually happened.

Example - After successfully conducting a relief in place the planner stated that he knew

there was no doubt they could do it from the beginning, even though the enemy artillery

was never located.

Confirmation bias - seek or weigh information that would confirm our perceptions,

beliefs, or understandings greater than that which would deny them. Confirmation bias

is a primary mechanism of groupthink (Janis & Mann, 1977). Groupthink is also

referred to as the "Abilene paradox." Organizational characteristics that influence

groupthink include high cohesiveness, insulation of the group from outside influences

(i.e, autonomy), shortage of methodical procedures for search and appraisal, directive

leadership, high stress with little hope of easily finding better solutions, and incomplete

identification of goals, alternatives, risks, and contingency plans.

Examples - Many historically significant events can be described as instances of

confirmation bias: Shuttle Challenger disaster, President Kennedy and his advisors for

the Bay of Pigs, President Johnson and his advisors who supported escalation in

Vietnam, Prime Minister Chamberlain's inner circle who supported appeasement to

Hitler.

Psychological and attitudmal pitfalls.

A subset of attitudes were drawn from Moore (1967) to illustrate how psychological

factors affect thinking.

Rationalization - People substitute acceptable reasons for real reasons. Often we find

that we have committed to a situation that we later realize is not desirable. To resolve

an inconsistency in our thinking we might naturally explain the inconsistency away by

rationalization. Rationalizing can become a habit, using excuses rather than facing the

real issues.

Example - Someone might want to drop out of a civic obligation because he does not

want to give the required effort. If he drops out for that reason he will suffer loss of

self-esteem -- it is painful to acknowledge laziness. So he "withdraws" and eases the

potential psychological pain by rationalizing; it is easy to find acceptable reasons, like

'disagree with the way the chairperson holds meetings,' 'have other pressing obligations,'

or 'would like to spend more time with family.'

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Variations of rationalizing include,

sour grapes - People diminish what they wanted but could not have. You cannot reach

the grapes, well they must have been sour anyhow. You did not get the promotion,

'well you would not like the stress of that job and you are too valuable in your current

job.'

sweet lemon - People glorify what they are stuck with. The car you bought is a lemon;

but even if it breaks down every other day it has the nicest paint job in town.

excuse making - People attribute problems to events out of their control. The property

books in the company were all messed up, if you had not had to take emergency leave

last June they would have never gotten out of hand.

blaming others - People attribute failure to others. The course of action did not last

much past breaching the obstacle. But if the S2 had given you a better picture of the

enemy, the plan would have worked elegantly.

criticizing others - People raise their own relative position by tearing down others.

Jealousy is not an acceptable reason to dislike someone, so you find other faults. The

Commander from B Company got the prime mission assignment. 'Why did not he

close on the objective any sooner than he did?'

Aid - To reduce rationalizing, cultivate a good self image, one that is willing to face

reality frankly and objectively. Be alert to possible rationalizations and take pride in

catching yourself in them. Learn from mistakes, do not let them haunt you.

Organizationally allow for frank, open assessments, and avoid fault-finding. Focus on

outcomes instead of blaming. Reserve commitment to uncertain beliefs or actions until

after you have thought more thoroughly, sought other's advice, and looked at other

perspectives.

Mind sets - People tend to view a situation in a certain way. In its simplest form a mind

set is a perceptual error. Mind sets account in part for our tendency to perceive what

we expect to perceive. We understand the world and form concepts based on the

patterns we determine. Sometimes it is hard to break apart those patterns.

Example - MG Ridgway (XVIII Airborne Corps) during the Battle of the Bulge (22 Dec

1944, following the Defense of Saint Vith) was locked into his airborne infantry

perspective that the 7th Armored should fight surrounded in a "fortified goose-egg"

position. He was finally convinced that it would be better for the armored forces to

withdraw and reconstitute across the Salm River (Morelock, 1993).

Aid - To reduce mind sets identify and hold open possibilities. Cultivate a habit to stop

and reconsider the course you are pursuing. Give more attention to contrary than to

confirmatory evidence. Recognize the difference between skepticism and closemindedness. Do not avoid mind sets by replacing decision with indecision. (For further

advice refer to the lesson on multiple perspectives.)

Attitudes - predispositions to react favorably or unfavorably to a situation, depending on

one's system of values. Positive and negative attitudes both influence our thinking. The

danger is that often we are unaware of underlying attitudes and their influence on

thinking and behavior. Attitudes are shaped by values, motivations, and expectations,

among others. In most situations there is a good deal of latitude for how they are

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interpreted. We often are subject to our own self-fulfilling prophecies, we take a

negative or positive stance prior to an event and then interpret the event to be consistent

with our expectation.

Example - Suppose ten years ago, you became familiar with a national health care system

while visiting another country and the experience was positive, you are of an altruistic

bent and believe that the US should provide for important needs of the poor. Then you

are likely to favor the concept of national health care. If you never had any positive

exposure to national health care and believe that government is basically inefficient at

running large programs, then your attitude may lead to negative thoughts about national

health care.

Aid - To counteract maladaptive attitudes, you must be vigilant for unsatisfactory

conditions in your life to signal you to examine your attitudes and values.

Identification - The pitfall associated with identification is that we tend to accept

uncritically the ideas of those with whom we have identified; we tend to borrow our

attitudes, stereotypes, and values without stopping to question whether they are right or

wrong, true or false. The student might pattern himself after that of his coach or

professor. Admirable qualities might have a 'halo effect' over other qualities and we do

not distinguish between them. From an extreme standpoint whatever this person does,

says, or thinks is okay. Through identification we adopt false or conflicting ideas. The

opposite of identification can occur too. Disassociation might occur when we try to

distance our beliefs and actions from some particular group or individual.

Example - A student admired his former commander whose favorite book was

Clausewitz On War. He cherished his own copy and often recommended it to others, but

never attempted to read it himself.

Aid - As with other pitfalls you must be aware (vigilant) and examine critically all ideas

before accepting them; think for yourself.

Guidelinesforpractical reasoning.

Sometimes we have a feeling that there is a problem in our reasoning or that of others.

We might want to check it out, to reason more deeply about a problem, but we might not know

how to get started. To "quick start" a deeper reasoning process we can rely on thoughtprovoking questions. Six questions for stimulating practical reasoning are:

What if? The what if question has both creative and critical components of Practical

Thinking. It can be used to stimulate creative thinking, e.g., what if the impossible were

possible? And stimulate critical thinking, e.g., what if tank noise could be muffled to be

audible only at a close distance?

What else? Questions about "what else" help to form alternate and richer

understandings. If this were not the case, what else could it be? Consider how contrary

views might be true or where they may lead. For example, if the enemy does not intend

to revert to the defense, what else could explain what is happening?

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So what? Some assertions are very precise and make the invited inference to cases of

interest. The concrete, specific nature of the assertion intends to appeal to preference

for concrete concepts, but the application to broader or other specific instances may not

be sound. To form and test conclusions, one can ask the "so what" question to check if

the implied relationship actually is significant and has any practical value?

What specifics? Claims are often general, trying to appeal to broad interests. Checking

claims with specific information is a good way to test them. This relates to the evidence

part of the standards of reasoning. What specifics indicate that more restrictive firing

range policies really will increase safety.

Is there a weak link? Looking for the Achilles heel in a reasoning chain is a way to check

for another standard of reasoning, consistency.

What is unexpected? The unexpected prediction or result can clue one to incomplete or

poor reasoning. We implicitly accept what outcomes are expected, but we often do not

look for counter indications that would prove us wrong. Experts have a better idea of

what to expect in terms of typical cases and the boundary conditions. The lessor expert

often ignores uncertainty, but the more expert infers what the unexpected means.

Summary.

Practical, everyday reasoning has been contrasted with formal, logical reasoning to show

why logic is not sufficient for improving reasoning. The single most valuable thing one can do

ahead of time to improve reasoning is to acquire knowledge that will be needed. In the rapidly

changing world, it may be difficult to anticipate what knowledge will be needed. The changing

world creates great variability that also makes learning sufficient knowledge a daunting task.

Practical reasoning skills based on informal reasoning concepts are not the usual

approach for teaching military and Army students. Practical, everyday reasoning provides an

alternate approach to either a classical process model or a strict knowledge and experiential

model. What is appealing about this approach is that it deals with common-sense. The lesson

described five desired standards (qualities) of reasoning that should be incorporated into our

reasoning habits. Several reasoning fallacies and psychological pitfalls were covered that should

be recognized and prevented. Finally six guidelines in the form of questions are offered to help

improve and maintain practical reasoning.

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Integrative Thinking

Integrative thinking is based on cognitive complexity (Baker-Brown, et al, 1992;

McDaniel & Lawrence, 1990; Streufet & Streufert, 1978) and reflective judgment (King &

Kitchener, 1994) theories. It is in contrast to the other Practical Thinking skills, that sought to

elaborate individual skills. Integrative thinking is a skill that brings overall meaning to the

forefront. In lay terms, integrative thinking can be thought of as seeing the big picture or

grasping the essence of things.

This lesson is designed to describe, illustrate, and practice the skill of integrative

thinking. The lesson defines integrative thinking and describes it in terms of the characteristics

of progressive levels of the skill. The students are given the opportunity to evaluate levels and

characteristics of integrative thinking in the context of opposing commanders within an historical

battle situation. Combining knowledge of past and present events is difficult in the complex,

dynamic command domain of the MSF where there is so much information. The ability to grasp

the essence of a situation is an important skill, but is not well-understood nor well-defined.

This lesson should provide a better understanding of what integrative thinking is and

how the skill is obtained and applied. Integrative reasoning can be shown by practicing the

other Practical Thinking skills that are essential to its development and how growth is dependent

more upon motivation and study attitudes then upon special talents. There are two primary

teaching points.

Reasoning applied to experience is the essential ingredient in developing integrative

thinking skills. We should learn from experience, not just live through it. Integrative

thinking is primarily the understanding of cause-and-effect relationships within subtle

environmental influences. Unless we "think through" our experiences looking for these

relational "rules" and comparing them across experiences, we gain little from them.

These relational knowledge structures (sometimes called "schemata") continue to develop

over time with experience in the domain. As new experiences add to existing knowledge,

two abilities apply: Differentiation is knowing when rules do not apply. Integration is

knowing under what conditions certain rules relate to each other and when they can be

combined. The processes of differentiation and integration result in the domain expert

acquiring a large set of highly interrelated schemata at various levels of abstraction.

Based upon past experiences, different situational events cue different memories which

may, in turn, cue still others. Due to the size, complexity, and familiarity of domain

knowledge structures, much of the reasoning of experienced individuals is often done

unconsciously in a rapid fashion, the reasoner only becoming aware of the products of

the reasoning. This phenomenon is often labelled as "intuition" but is, in fact, the result

of a great deal of experience and learning.

This lesson describes the nature and acquisition of integrative thinking and gives the

student the opportunity to test their level of integrative thinking in battlefield decision making.

Concepts for raising integrative thinking levels are described.

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Definition ofintegrutive thinking.

Integrative thinking is the ability to comprehend the relationships among events or

objects whose association is not obvious to the unskilled observer. It is a critical skill in battle

command because of the large number of interacting factors on the battlefield and the frequent

necessity for rapid decision making. Synthesis is a related term that can be used

interchangeably with integration. Integration involves the generation of plausible and rational

explanations or solutions in complex situations based upon knowledge gained through experience

and study.

The integrative thinking concept can be illustrated by giving partial information and

discussing what the known information means. For example one approach is to present a

somewhat novel situation array of unit symbols and ask students to give possible explanations of

what it means. The diagram has only unit symbols without unit boundaries, directions of

movement, or underlying terrain features. Specific probing questions can be raised like, what

type of unit is this, what different missions might they have, what is the terrain, what might the

enemy be doing, and so on. A number of teaching points can be made with this activity. For

officers with greater experience, possible explanations can be generated more quickly, but there

might be less fluency of ideas. Less experienced officers will probably have more trouble filling

in the gaps and understanding what the pattern possibly means. The plausibility of alternate

explanations can also be explored. Differences in integrative thinking ability ought to be

represented in a class of students from different branches with certain branches doing better

than others on problems familiar to them. There are parallels to this simple classroom activity

and research that has examined expert-novice differences. For example, the novice x-ray

technician will typically diagnose a collapsed lung lobe as a tumor because both present the

same darkened region on the x-ray. The experienced technician, however, will take into account

other related cues such as the overexpansion of the lobes surrounding the collapsed one to

correctly diagnose the condition (Chi, Glaser & Farr, 1988).

Research comparing novices with experts in such fields as computer programming,

physics and chess, show that the novices' memory of problems is organized primarily around

observable objects and relationships such as similar wording, stated variables, or types of chess

pieces. The experts' memory for problems is organized instead around principles and meanings.

The expert has developed knowledge that permits the understanding of a situation in terms of

abstract relationships not apparent to someone less knowledgeable. As a military example,

consider two people who have just read historical accounts of two events: Napoleon at Mantua

and Germany's shifting of forces from the Western to the Eastern Front in WWI. One person

knows about and is able to apply the abstract principle of interior lines. The other person does

not have this knowledge. The knowledgeable person readily sees the similarity between the two

events. The unfamiliar person may not see any similarity. The unfamiliar person sees that one

is a specific battle while the other a war strategy, or this person sees one using a natural

obstacle and the other using wide physical separation. The unfamiliar person compares the two

events only on surface features like this.

Relation ofintegrative thinking to Practical Thinking.

Just having "lived through" a CGSC class, a SIMEX, or some duty assignment does not

guarantee that someone has learned something that can be applied elsewhere. Learning does

not mean "getting by" or memorizing something in order to regurgitate it later. True learning

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involves integrating an experience into one's knowledge so that it is available to be used in

comprehending similar situations and solving similar problems even if they occur years later. To

do this, we must think about what we have experienced. The exercise of Practical Thinking

techniques is a major part of this learning.

Three rather simple general rules apply here. First, the more we think about an

experience, the more apt we are to remember it. This is true not only because of the general

amount of practice it receives, but also because the more different ways we think about

something, the more things it becomes associated with in memory. Thus, the more

environmental cues are available to recall it. Second, true learning is nearly always goal-driven.

If you set objectives for what you want to learn from a course or skills you want to pick up from

a duty assignment, then your thinking is focused and you have something to measure your

progress against. Third, the quality of our thinking about an experience determines the validity

of the knowledge we derive. The exercise of Practical Thinking supports all three of these rules.

For example, suppose you had been in a simulation exercise where the result did not

come out the way you would like. Your reaction might have gone one of several ways. First

you might have considered the outcome of the exercise just a case of bad luck and tried to

forget about it. In this case you would learn very little from the experience. Or another

reaction might be that the experience troubles you quite a bit. You might hold a lot of negative

feelings and wake up at night thinking about what you should have done differently. In this case

you might reach some simple conclusion like you should never attempt to bypass a minefield.

You thought a lot about it, but your thinking was emotionally charged with little rational

reasoning. From now on, you are apt to attempt to breach any minefield you encounter

regardless of the circumstances. A third reaction would be to apply some of the principles of

Practical Thinking to this experience:

"What must it have looked like from the enemy's perspective?

From my subordinates' perspectives?

What wrong assumptions did I make?

Were there any biases in my thinking?

How could I have better controlled my thinking during the operation?

What principles and rules of warfare did I violate and why?"

The result of such a rational self-analysis of the experience is that memory for the event is

enhanced and stored under many different knowledge structures. The relationships among these

different categories of knowledge are examined and established. These learned relationships are

now available not only for application in similar situations but, because of the rational way they

were derived, for testing in those situations as well.

Acquisition of integrative thinking.

The above example illustrates how the sort of relational knowledge required for

integrative thinking is acquired. From the viewpoint of the cognitive psychologist, considered

experience of any kind, be it on-the-job, classroom or self-development, can change our

knowledge of the objects, attributes, and relationships within that domain.

We develop and alter our working definitions of the domain objects through these

experiences. For example, for the typical inexperienced civilian, mention of the word "tank" in a

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military context probably triggers some mental visualization gained from the movies or

television, perhaps of a WW II Sherman. For the supply officer its mention may recall the fuel

consumption rate for the Ml. For the armor officer, what a "tank" means is so rich and stored in

so many different knowledge structures that there is no consistently specific meaning that is

recalled. For this person a more specific context might be needed before they are willing to

conjure up any image at all.

Much of what creates this diversity in object definitions are the number, types and

definitions of attributes the mind has associated with the object. To use the example of the tank

again, the inexperienced civilian's attributes may include: military, vehicle, metal, runs on

"rollers", shoots a big gun, all of which can be comprehended in a single visualization. For the

supply officer, who may have a very complex understanding of the physical attributes of the Ml,

the primary attributes recalled are probably in terms of fuel and ammunition, various spare part

consumption rates, and the physical requirements for resupply. For the armor officer, the

attributes would include these plus a host of maintenance and operational characteristics.

Objects and attributes can further be combined into concepts.

"Concepts are mental representations of classes (e.g., one's beliefs about the class of

dogs or tables), and their most salient function is to promote cognitive economy

(Rosch, 1978) Another important function of concepts is that they enable us to

go beyond the information given (Bruner, Goodnow & Austin, 1956) Concepts,

then, are recognition devices; they serve as entry points into our knowledge stores and

provide us with expectations that we can use to guide our actions. ... A third

important function of concepts is that they can be combined to form complex concepts

and thoughts (e.g., Osherson & Smith, 1981)." (Smith, 1988, pp 19-20)

The more detailed and varied the object definitions and attributes assigned to them are,

the more accurate and varied the cause-and-effect relationships between the objects and their

environment can be. About all the inexperienced civilian may be able to say about the use of

the tank is that it can knock down brick walls, but is easily defeated by Audie Murphy with a

hand grenade. The experienced supply officer is able to study the terrain over which the tanks

must travel and types of operations they will probably be engaged in over that terrain and make

a reasonable estimate of the actual fuel, ammunition and spare part resupply rates they will

require. The experienced armor officer can look at that same terrain and mission requirements

and infer movement rates, choke points and obstacles, observation and engagement ranges,

overwatch positions, support requirements, probable losses, probability of successful mission

accomplishment, and so forth.

What this suggests is that there is no substitute for knowledge in being able to do

accurate and comprehensive integrative reasoning. This knowledge is developed by Practical

Thinking about experiences.

Two seemingly opposite but highly related skills develop as a result of acquiring this

knowledge. One is the ability to integrate. The other is the ability to differentiate-the ability to

correctly decide when a rule, procedure, or action does not apply-factors that cause

relationships to be broken. These two processes support each other in the continued building

and application of domain knowledge. For instance, the strategy of taking the offensive is well

ingrained as one of the principles of war. The officer learns its effectiveness through classroom

teaching, historical examples, exercise and battlefield application. It becomes part of the

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knowledge structure, applied where it seems applicable in COA decisions. As experience with

different operations grows, the officer learns there are situations where offensive mindedness

will probably not work--the application of the principle begins to be differentiated.

An example of this happened a few years back when a division was going through a war

fighting exercise (WFX). The scenario took place in mountainous terrain in northern Iran. The

Commander was expected to go after the enemy aggressively. Instead, because of the terrain,

he decided to let the enemy come to him, much to the chagrin of the training personnel. The

division was able to defeat the enemy with relatively few casualties. Knowing under what

conditions typical relationships will not apply is, perhaps, a step beyond knowing the

relationships themselves and is another mark of expertise gained through reasoned experience.

In fact, it is a further refinement of relational knowledge and very much a part of integrative

thinking.

Integrative thinking and expertise.

There are many personality and character qualities that either enhance or inhibit the

effective application of knowledge. However, the possession of domain knowledge, organized in

the mind in a way that it is readily recalled and used in problem solving is a necessary, if not

sufficient, ingredient to become an expert in job performance.

Many studies have found no significant relationship between domain expertise and IQ

(intelligent quotient) as long as IQ is above some baseline (for example, Glover, Ronning &

Reynolds, 1989; Sternberg, 1986). Studies have also found that expertise in one domain does

not enhance one's ability to quickly become an expert in another, unrelated domain (Gaines,

1987; Sternberg, 1986). What this suggests is that the development of expertise involves interest,

motivation, and hard work (also see Simonton, 1994)-all of which set necessary conditions for

learning from experiences.

But as was shown earlier, the application of Practical Thinking techniques to learning

experiences is a major determinate of how knowledge gets organized in the mind. Conscious,

goal-directed control of thought processes with a concerted effort to discover and eliminate

biases in reasoning and to understand the problem from many perspectives are the best

safeguards against developing misunderstandings which are often difficult to correct.

Beyond this, research suggests that experts are good practitioners of Practical Thinking.

Some of the findings that suggest this are:

1. Experts are proactive in seeking information and look more for disconfirming

information than non-experts (Bazerman, 1985).

2. Experts actively challenge assumptions and question information sources

(Kirschenbaum, 1992).

3. Experts are more flexible than non-experts, willing to adjust their understandings and

decisions based on new information (Shanteau, 1988).

4. Experts plan ahead, budget their time (de Lisi, 1992).

All of theses are suggestive of someone with good Practical Thinking skills.

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Integrative thinking and intuition.

Two other research findings about expertise are that experts are faster at solving

problems in their domain than non-experts (Gentner, 1988) and that the more competent

experts become, the less able they are to describe the knowledge they used to solve a problem

(Sternberg & Frensch, 1992). These two findings relate to the phenomenon of intuition which

Webster defines as "the act or faculty of knowing without the use of rational processes:

immediate cognition."

Consider a couple of common skills. Adults tie their shoes quickly and effectively without

thinking about it and can perform the task while occupied with some other thought or

conversation. If required to teach a young child how to do it, the average adult has to "go

through the motions" to remember how to explain it. This is because it is such a well-practiced

skill that it no longer requires conscious reasoning unless something goes wrong in the process.

Even such a complex skill as driving a car under various conditions becomes habituated to the

point where we can find ourselves not remembering the last several miles of a familiar trip

because we were deep in thought.

Consider a common staff skill such as interpreting a terrain map. The skilled practitioner

may glance at such a map and make a qualitative comparison between possible avenues of

approach with little conscious reasoning. This is because the attributes of a standard terrain map

and the relationships between avenue width, vegetation, obstacles, slope, types of units

accommodated, and movement rates are so familiar to some through learning and use that they

do not have to be consciously considered.

For the expert, much of what the rest of us have to consciously ponder and agonize over

already exists in highly developed, integrated and reinforced knowledge. Environmental cues

activate this knowledge producing an interpretation, understanding or solution that is the only

thing that reaches conscious awareness. This is also a highly efficient process because the

"stream of consciousness" is necessarily linear-one thought at a time, whereas unconscious

"reasoning" does not appear to have this limitation. Having never reached conscious awareness,

the expert is unable to recount the reasoning process involved. Although he or she may be able

to infer the process after the fact by recalling the same knowledge structures.

So what we call "intuition", for the domain expert at least, is not some mystical

conjuration nor a special quality available only to the gifted, but ought to be the result of much

reasoned learning and practice.

Ways to improve integrative thinking and develop expertise.

Although the acquisition of integrative thinking ability and expertise in general will

probably never be an easy or rapid process, here are some general guidelines that will help.

1. Resolve uncertainties. If you experience something in the classroom, in studying, or on

the job that you do not understand, make an attempt to understand it. Ask questions,

seek other sources, and think about it. This is not only the foundation for gaining

expertise, it is also the primary reason why so few people become experts in their

field. They do not take the time to resolve uncertainties.

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2. Look before you leap. Spend more time in understanding a problem before you

generate a solution. This is what experts do and it is directly linked to integrative

thinking. If you do not know the nuances in a situation and how they differ from

similar situations you have experienced, you do not have the basic information to

reason about cause and effect. Experts typically spend more time than novices trying

to understand a problem, when the problem is unfamiliar to them.

3. Use practical thinking techniques. Think about what might cause things to interact.

What sets the expert apart from others in almost every domain is the ability to

perceive patterns and to reason causally. The application of the techniques covered in

the other lessons on Practical Thinking will be useful for this. For instance, the crystal

ball technique to find hidden assumptions allows you to reason about alternative

causes for an event. Looking at the problem from multiple perspectives will also

broaden the alternative relationships to be considered. When these relationships are

being learned, conscious control of thought processes (using something like the GO

FITE WIN technique) can help improve efficiency, completeness, and objectivity.

4. Practice patience. If deliberate attention is not a familiar way to think, it may come as

a surprise that when you start thinking deeper, performance may actually worsen for a

time. This is because well entrenched behaviors no longer allow just "getting by." It is

like trying to change your golf swing to correct some error. Until the improved style

becomes habituated, your game will probably get worse.

Motivation and attitude.

A retired General Officer who was an acknowledged expert tactician, told of when he

drives down the road and sees a hill; he instinctively thinks about how he would attack it. You

must love what you are doing to become an expert at it (Glover, Ronning & Reynolds, 1989).

There is no substitute for this. Its motivation that keeps you thinking about your profession

when you would not "have" to, or doing extracurricular reading, or not giving up and taking the

easy solution when you know there must be a better one. As was said before, becoming an

expert is not primarily a matter of IQ, but of long hours and effort. It is desire that separates

the expert from the mere competent.

Shortcomings of experts.

Like in a lot of things, the experts' strengths also play a part in their weaknesses.

Experts can arrive at decisions faster because much of their reasoning is so well practiced that it

is done without reaching conscious awareness. Experts tend to do a lot of conscious reasoning

only about rare events, ones for which they have no existing knowledge structures that will

provide a ready solution. The typical process in familiar situations is that some set of cues in the

situation triggers particular knowledge structures that contain interpretations or solutions early

on in the process. This tentative interpretation or solution then drives the quest for confirming

or disconfirming information and knowledge. Based on this further reasoning, the solution is

refined or rejected for something else.

There are fallibilities that experts must remain aware of (metacognition) in this process.

First of all, there are people who develop rich relational knowledge structures based primarily

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upon "musing" about the subject with little empirical evidence to support their suppositions. Such

people have a mindset to form elaborate interpretations of a situation based upon very little

information. The more detailed and interconnected these interpretations become, the harder it

is to change them based upon external evidence to the contrary. Such a person must be cued by

failures in their "mental models" to pay more attention to external evidence.

The second fallibility is related to the first but is a more basic human shortcoming.

Research has shown that simple linear models that only account for the most common

relationships in a domain outperform experts on complex problems. A primary reason for this is

that humans tend to jump to conclusions about the existence of a relationship based upon having

seen one piece of evidence, or very little at best. We do not take into account the frequency of

occurrence (base rate) in inferring a relationship (Johnson, 1988; Schustack, 1988). So a person

can develop a belief that a definite relationship exists based upon one experience that was an

anomaly. The model, that simply takes into account the probability, or base rate, of occurrence

will thus be better most of the time. There are two things you can do to avoid this error. First

of all, be aware of it, use the external sources available to you to help you determine

probabilities, or at least, relative frequency. Secondly, what humans are good at is causal

reasoning, determining why a relationship exists. So something like the crystal ball technique

can be used to test what else could account for the apparent relationship before jumping to

conclusions.

Levels ofintegrative thinking.

The fact that no one can become an expert overnight in a complex domain suggests that

there are levels of development in acquiring domain knowledge. The following explanation

divides the development of domain knowledge into five stages or levels of ability and describes

them in terms of the types of knowledge structures that are prevalent, how decisions are

typically made at that level, and other characteristics (see Figure 7). Progression through these

levels is primarily a matter of interest and effort.

Level I. Reliance on Authority. "I only know what I read."

The neophyte has probably read one book or talked to one experienced person and this

is his or her source of knowledge.

Knowledge structures are simple facsimiles of what is retained about what the expert

says.

Decisions simplify the problem to make it fit what has been appropriated from the

source.

For example, someone buying a car at this stage of knowledge might reason something

like, "My father always drove a (car model X) and we have always driven one. I see no reason to

change now." There is no reasoning beyond quoting an authority figure and tradition.

Level II. Awareness of Complexity. "No two people seem to agree and I don't know who's

right."

The layperson has now read other sources and/or talked to several experienced people

who disagree on major points.

Conflicting, unintegrated knowledge structures may exist at this time.

Most decisions will probably still be derived from the original knowledge source as there

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is no clear basis for refuting it, although now some biased justification is probably

offered.

At this point, some ambiguity is introduced, but is more annoying than instructive.

Exceptions to known rules are perceived and at least brought to mind, but no

synthesizing knowledge structures exist to judge them.

With few exceptions, this is a transitional level-conflict causes a resolution of one sort or

another.

Someone at this second level who is buying a car might reason something like, "You can

get a lemon no matter what you buy, so we might as well go with what we're use to." The person

realizes that it might not work out, maybe they've heard some horror stories from (car model X)

owners, but they have no knowledge to further reason about it.

Level III. Reflection. "It all depends, you just have to decide for yourself"

The novice is attempting to resolve conflicting points of view and spending time

consciously thinking about it.

Integrated knowledge structures are just beginning to form, and are very dynamic at this

point, in a state of flux, so opinions are likely to change frequently.

Decisions now involve a great deal of conscious thought and effort, balancing and

comparing different alternatives, which complicates and sometimes delays the decision.

Justifications for decisions are typically disjointed and limited to the specific problem

context.

There is now conscious consideration of ambiguities.

Exceptions to known rules are now openly considered and influencing the building of

knowledge structures.

Uncertainty is now a motivator of thought.

At this level in the car buying problem, the reasoning might go something like, "There is

a $2000 difference in the asking price between the (first car model) and the (second car model),

but the higher priced one gets a little better gas mileage. I don't know, maybe we'd better wait

until they've been out awhile to see how each one holds up." This person knows two conflicting

criteria on which to judge the two alternatives, but does not know how to resolve them. They

also realize that other criteria exist but can't define them.

Level IV. Emerging Synthesis. "I'm beginning to understand how it all works together"

The journeyman is developing a broad understanding of the domain and is able to

reason across situations using general principles.

More stable integrative knowledge structures are emerging and gaining both breadth and

depth as successful applications and new experiences are added to them. More abstract

knowledge structures are emerging that are applicable to a variety of situations.

Decisions now include elements of information not observable in the problem context.

Broad ideas are used that help define and interpret the situation. There is a clearly

recognizable explanatory theme. Ideas are integrated to define subcomponents of the

problem. Comparisons between alternatives are made on the weight of evidence, utility,

and pragmatic considerations. Justifications for decisions use evidence that is not all

context-specific.

Ambiguities are now sought after as part of the reasoning process.

Exceptions to accepted rules are more readily incorporated into more differentiated and

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integrated knowledge structures.

Uncertainties continue as a motivator for thought and better knowledge structures make

resolution faster and more effective.

There is the emergence of the ability to make predictions as more refined knowledge

structures take into account situation dynamics.

In the car buying example, someone at this level might reason something like, "With the

low interest rates right now, the $2000 difference in price doesn't mean as much as the last time

we bought a car, so the better mileage of the (first car model) makes a bigger difference. The

experts say the (first car model) is generally better built, but the way my son drives, (second car

model's) better handling on the curves and braking has got to count for something." This person

has the highly relational knowledge structures that permit's seeing how variables relate to each

other. They are able to bring in more general and abstract factors like interest rates as well. The

reasoning has now expanded to dynamic factors, like visualizing their son driving the car.

Level V. Mastery. "I'm confident now that I can figure out almost any problem you can

give me."

The expert has a highly practiced deep and broad understanding of the domain and can

handle a wide variety of problems routinely.

Knowledge structures of the domain are highly interrelated and exist over a broad

spectrum of abstraction from situation-specific memories to broad principles and

relationships applicable over the entire domain. At this point, the knowledge structures

are relatively stable, changing mostly by broadening to take in new, unique experiences.

Reasoning has a large unconscious element as well-practiced knowledge structures are

activated and associated rapidly based upon cues from the environment. Decisions are

based upon constructing cause-effect relationships that typically involve restructuring the

problem from various points of view. Interpretations are arrived at by analogy,

application of broad principles, and deep and broad knowledge of the domain. When

faced with novel situations for which they have no ready answer experts are still typically

more accurate than others because they have such a broad knowledge base to draw upon

to form new associations and because of the quality of their reasoning processes.

Handling and use of ambiguities, exceptions to rules, and uncertainties are much like the

journeyman but they become more comfortable with these situations based upon

increased experience and successful performance.

The highly integrated reasoning of the expert leads to improved predictions as they

better comprehend the dynamic relationships among variables.

At the expert level, the reasoner is able to synthesize overarching viewpoints because

they are able to comprehend the commonalities and differences between events or

alternatives using their interrelated knowledge structures and practiced reasoning skills.

In the car buying problem, the "expert" (dynamic reasoning, not technical) might reason

something like this, "We intend to keep this car for at least three years. Our son will have to buy

his own car in less than a year, so we won't need to consider him. That also means the type of

driving we will do will change considerably, mostly shorter trips to work and shopping-urban

driving. The reduced mileage should keep up the resale value of the car, and even though (first

car model) has a higher initial price, its much higher trade-in value will definitely offset the

difference plus some. Also, the better high speed handling of the (second car model) doesn't

mean much in urban driving anyway and the better MPG of the (first car model) is even more

important with the stop and go driving." There is dynamic and predictive reasoning going on

81
here. There is a realization of an overarching truth that causes a reevaluation of the dynamics

of the problem-their son won't be driving the car. All factors are now synthesized at this level

to produce a single integrated picture.

Synthes is

Predict ion

Ambiguity

Except i ons

to rules

Decisions

Know I edge

structures

Exper ience

Overarchi ng

v i ewpo i nts

Recogni ze Improved

dynamics predict i ons

Bothersome Conscious Sought 1 ncreased

conisderat ion out use

Perceived Open 1y Readi ly 1ncreased

but not considered used use

judged

S i mp1i fy From ex ist i ng Thought Use new Use different

know 1 edge & effort t nformat ion perspect ives

Copy Uni ntegrated Initial Breadth, depth Highly

others ConfI ict i ng i ntegrat ion abstract ion i nterrelated

Neophyte Layperson Nov ice Journeyman Expert

Reliance on Awareness of

authority complexity

Reflect ion Emergi ng

synthes i s

Mastery

Levels of Integrative Thinking

Figure 7. Characteristics of integrative thinking levels.

Summary.

Integrative thinking is an advanced skill of understanding the relationships among events

and objects where the relationships have not been made explicit before. Integrative thinking is a

process. It does not rely on what one reads or hears but on how they think. Four ways were

discussed to improve integrative thinking: resolve uncertainties, look before you leap, apply

Practical Thinking techniques, and practice patience.

Five levels of integrative thinking are distinguished: reliance on authority, awareness of

complexity, reflection, emerging synthesis, and mastery. The higher levels of integrative thinking

involve the ability to deal with complexity and dynamics. They involve reflecting, knowing

exceptions to rules, being flexible, withholding judgment, and making predictions. Uncertainty is

not seen as burdensome. When there is uncertainty it is used to develop better understandings

and to scope possibilities. Information that is not readily associated with a problem is brought

to bear to assess situations or develop new solutions. The broad, deep, and well-practiced

knowledge structures that good integrative thinkers use allow more 'sophisticated' reasoning.

Integrative thinking synthesizes over-arching understandings and viewpoints.

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Summary of Teaching Points

There were many teaching points and philosophies throughout the six Practical Thinking

lessons. The following summarize some of the recurring ones.

Thinking is a uniquely personal commodity or resource. Improving thinking is not going

to be done by listening to a collection of facts or reading about it. Improving it takes more than

adhering to a sequence of procedural steps or mathematical algorithms. Improving thinking

takes mindful effort; it cannot be left as a mystical, intuitive process that some have and some

do not. Intuition is important to Practical Thinking, but it is primarily a label we use when we

do not know precisely how experience and reasoning come together. Explicit consideration of

thinking, reflection, and mindful effort can lead to improvement in thinking. Effort is required

especially as an adult when thinking patterns and short cuts are deeply ingrained.

Improving thinking will take conscious, personal effort -- time to pause to think, to

reflect, to introspect, to commit to form hypotheses about how to think. To improve thinking

takes intrinsic motivation to want to find better ways of thinking, reasoning, deciding, and

problem solving. The Practical Thinking lessons presented these foundational points and offered

ideas and concepts for improving thinking. Many of these concepts may not be right for

everyone, or some people may already consciously recognize and use them. Perhaps some

people's thinking is personally advanced beyond the point where the lessons and their concepts

are useful. Perhaps the concepts will bother others and motivate them to actively seek better

concepts than those proposed here.

A metacognitive model was presented that was offered as a way of considering learning

and preparing in advance for critical, time compressed situations. Metacognition requires an

active, reflective, and generative learner and thinker. Conscious and deliberate effort to manage

thinking can become a habit. One key aspect of managing thinking has to do with adapting

thinking to contextual factors of a situation. GO-FITE-WIN can help remind us of important

questions for "decision triage." GO: What are the goals of thinking? What obstacles need to be

overcome? FITE: How familiar is the situation? How important is the outcome? How much

time is available? What level of mental effort is required? WIN: What's important now?

Improving thinking will require the exploration of different ways of viewing the world.

This premise will not always be consistent with conformance to doctrine and superiors, but the

changing world requires clear, practical thinkers to anticipate what impending changes imply.

Practical Thinking advocates breadth of thinking, possibility thinking, and critical thinking as

ways to achieve good results.

Some educational factions or practitioners might equate critical thinking with cynicism

and negativism, but this is a short-sighted view. Examining the weaknesses or potential flaws is

a basic step in improving plans and safeguarding against potential problems. Just pointing out a

potential flaw does a service, even if no solution is apparent. Perhaps the increased uncertainty

will prompt additional questioning and problem solving. Or the recognition of uncertainty may

increase vigilance and openness to realize new or modified options. Experts spend more time

searching for a beneficial perspective on the problem when there is uncertainty.

Intuition was explained to be due to processes of learning, experience, and reasoning.

Intuition is not some mystical gift. Intuition can be explained from knowledge that becomes

abstracted and generalized; however, the precise mental processes are not clear. We do not

83
know beforehand that we know something or how we know it, but the knowledge affects how we

feel and can provide insight to understand and create new solutions.

Critical thinking can reveal "beliefs" that rely on hidden assumptions. Hidden

assumptions might be masking hidden problems or narrowing perspectives unnecessarily. Once

multiple possibilities are identified the plausibility of the alternate explanations need to be

tested.

Keeping track of unexpected events is a compatible skill. Certain beliefs or assumptions

will go unrecognized and can disrupt expectations. Typically unexpected events are ignored as

each occurs. People prefer closure so they tend to dismiss the oddities that do not fit with their

understanding. Collectively the unexpected events might suggest something with quite different

meaning. This is why unexpected events should not be dismissed as they occur, but tracked over

time.

Our judgment, insight, or "intuition" can give a feeling to be concerned about our

conclusions or those of others. The suspicious feeling may not be associated with any specific

knowledge that indicates what might be wrong. To help "quick start" one's reasoning to identify

critical problems, or to simply safeguard conclusions six questions can be applied to the problem:

what if, what else, so what, what specifics, is there a weak link, what is unexpected? The

questions can be used when there is a lack of critical thinking by others, which is a symptom of

groupthink.

Integrative thinking is a term applied to the skill of seeing the big picture and deciding

accordingly. Integrative thinking characteristics that are desired include the ability to resolve

complexity, understand situation dynamics, reflect on meanings and future states, apply

exceptions to rules, recognize that uncertainty is useful--not burdensome, and predict. Integrative

thinkers introduce information that is not readily associated with the problem. They produce

and use broad, deep, and well-practiced knowledge structures that allow more 'sophisticated'

reasoning. Most importantly they combine these characteristics to synthesize over-arching

viewpoints. Achievement of advanced integrative thinking is due in a large part to concentration

on learning everything possible from all experiences.

These premises about thinking relate to attitudes. If attitudes are not simultaneously

addressed the skills will not be used and improved. Thinking, or the lack of it, can be better

understood by examining the attitudes that influence our desired beliefs. Some of these

attitudes include fear of failure, ego maintenance, rationalization, and identification. If

organizations do not cultivate healthy attitudes, then Practical Thinking skills will not contribute

or flourish. Even in an environment that promotes multiple approaches, multiple perspectives,

exploration of different interpretations, and open criticism, absolute decisions will still be

needed. Practical Thinking can contribute to making the rapid, life-threatening decisions that

are required of our Army's leaders.

84
Teaching Practical Thinking

Practical Thinking was incorporated as a subcourse in the Battle Command Course,

A308. The Battle Command Course is described in the advance sheet booklet for A308. The

advance sheets provide students with the goals, scope, learning objectives, and homework

assignments, among other items. Figure 8 describes what the Battle Command course is about.

Description of Subcourse

Eight meetings were scheduled for the subcourse, totalling 17 hours of instruction time.

(About 30 hours of instruction were originally requested to cover the topics.) The eight

scheduled lessons included an overview (Lesson 1, 1 hour), taking multiple perspectives (Lesson

4, 3 hours), adapting thought to situations (Lesson 6, 1 hour), finding hidden assumptions

(Lesson 9, 3 hours), characteristics of expertise (Lesson 11, 1 hour), practical reasoning (Lesson

12, 3 hours), integrative thinking (Lesson 16, 3 hours), and skill practice (Lesson 19, 2 hours).

The lessons followed the concepts described in the previous sections of this report.

The primary topics of the lessons are outlined in Table 7. Developers and instructors of

the subcourse included three ARI researchers and one CGSC instructor from the Leadership

Instructional Department.

Relationship to the Battle Command Course

The implementation of the Practical Thinking instruction was complicated by the fact

that it was combined with other experimental instruction.

Scheduling.

ARI lessons were scheduled for convenience on the A308 calendar, rather than for any

consideration to an instructional model. As a result, continuity, coherence, and reinforcement of

the Practical Thinking concepts may have suffered.

Class hours.

Several changes in the time for Practical Thinking occurred. Lesson 9 was shortened

from three to two hours. Also Lessons 11, 16, and 19 were changed from 3 blocks to 1 block,

and instead of 6 hours, there was only three hours available. Actual instruction for Practical

Thinking totalled 12 hours, about 30 percent less than the 17 hours originally scheduled. The

changes were made to allocate more time for other A308 activities including class meetings,

SIMEX planning, and briefing preparations.

Conflicting goals.

The possibility of conflict with the other goals and initiatives of A308 was anticipated.

There were many initiatives in A308 that were not always in harmony. Other initiatives

85
GOAL

A308 is designed to increase the students understanding of the art of tactical battle

command and how it will be practiced in the 21st century.

SCOPE

A308, Battle Command, is a 180-hour elective that is designed to prepare students to function as

competent and confident leaders on the battlefields of the 21st century. It builds on previous

Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) instruction and will familiarize students with

the decision support systems, equipment, and tactical organizations that the Army is developing to

meet future warfighting requirements.

This course will be in three phases and will span both terms 2 and 3. These phases are

designed to mold a group of students into a high-performance staff. The course will consist of 22

lessons which will be broken out among these 3 phases. The class will meet three times a week

during the afternoon modules. Throughout this course the students will be assigned to specific

positions within the mobile strike force (MSF) and will develop the expertise needed to excel in those

positions. The MSF will be the tactical vehicle for developing the students. The A308 class

members will serve as the MSF commanders and staff for the Prairie Warrior (PW) 95 exercise. The

Army Research Institute (ARI) will have a unique role in this course. They will discuss with students

new concepts in making decisions. The class will discuss the human dimensions of decisionmaking

and will explore new concepts for making decisions utilizing the battle command tools provided.

The guest speakers will address critical decisions that they had to make during their careers.

Students will receive background information on those decisions, and we will discuss them prior to

the arrival of the guest speaker.

The first phase (Jan-Feb) will focus on core doctrine required of all area of concentration (AOC)

combat arms (CA) and combat service support (CSS) students. In addition we will discuss the

battle command concept and human dimensions of command, and we will introduce the student to

the MSF. Students with a CA AOC will be taught the key doctrinal concepts of A301, 304, and 305.

Students with a CSS AOC will be taught the key doctrinal concepts found in A459. The core

doctrine instruction will end on 2 February 1994. A308 will then focus on the MSF and its decision

support systems. Students will learn to use the battle command tools being developed for the 21st

century. Students will also learn to function as the MSF staff and its supporting major subordinate

commands (MSCs) and how to employ the MSF on the battlefield. At this point simulation exercises

(SIMEX) using corps battle simulation (CBS) will be the principle means of instructing the students.

The second phase (Mar) will address specific battle command competencies needed to support

the MSF. Again a SIMEX will be used to help develop these competencies. We will discuss insights

into the art of battle command that are evolving from current experimentation, research, and leader

development programs. Guest speakers will be brought in to discuss with the students key

decisions they made as commanders and how they came to make them.

The third

phase. April

conclude its

the students

students key

review (AAR)

exercise.

phase (Apr-May) will consist of the competencies and skills addressed in the second

will focus on SIMEX3, which will be the dress rehearsal for the PW 95 exercise. ARI will

instruction with a series of practical exercises designed to reinforce the concepts that

have been taught. A final set of guest speakers will be brought in to discuss with the

decisions they made as commanders. The course will end with a two-day after action

This phase will end on 10 May, and the students will transition into the PW 95

(p 1, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1995)

Figure 8. Course description for Battle Command.

86
included the introduction of new organizational structure; new staff structure; new employment

doctrine and tactics.techniques, and procedures; projection of 2015 weapon and system capabilities;

test bed for automated decision support systems; and simulation-based exercises.

The Practical Thinking concepts received little command and organizational emphasis

compared to these initiatives. There was minimal reference to Practical Thinking by other A308

instructors during working sessions and command post exercises. Also Practical Thinking

instructors were encouraged not to interact with the MSF students other than during Practical

Thinking classes. There was little participation by other A308 instructors in the Practical

Thinking lessons. Only one of the four homeroom instructors took part in the class discussions.

The students' attentions were directed toward the warfighting innovations of the MSF, rather

than the explicit development of leaders.

Even though many of the students acknowledged utility of the Practical Thinking

concepts, many felt that they were discouraged by the instructors and command environment

from practicing many of the concepts, such as thinking "outside the box" or applying a new

perspective.

Challenges

This subcourse involved the challenge of developing material from a theoretical and

research base to a very applied and complex domain of battle command. The need for this

course originated from many chances to observe battle command performance, and the concepts

were developed from naturalistic and everyday reasoning paradigms. The result was the

selection of topics and content that were considered to be relevant. Supporting materials were

selected from a wide range of sources including critical thinking, creativity, informal and

everyday reasoning. Although many of the concepts existed in texts and research reports, none

of the material, with the exception of finding hidden assumptions, had been applied and

developed for a military context and none had been previously related to the MSF. It was a

significant challenge to develop materials that were consistent and relevant for cognitive skill

development, emerging theories of naturalistic decision making, and battle command problems.

Instructor Assessment

The subcourse authors and instructors thought that overall the pilot implementation was

promising. Most material appeared to be well-received by the students, though there was a

notable difference in the interest students showed.

Lessons.

Instructors felt that different lessons stood out as best, probably reflecting their own

interest and enthusiasm for particular material. The most difficult lesson was unanimously

judged to be adapting to situations (metacognition). It was easy to fall into solving the problem

instead of focusing on how to think about one's mental strategy. The abstract nature of

metacognition made it difficult to demonstrate the skill's potential value. Instead of having a

separate lesson, the teaching points on metacognition could be incorporated into the review of

exercises. Alternatively, the lesson could focus on the extreme situations where nonroutine

87
procedures and skills must be invoked. Several instructors tried this with discussions of

heuristics to use for critical, time compressed situations.

The practical reasoning lesson is arguably the most central component of the Practical

Thinking subcourse, yet could be assessed as least meeting author expectations in content. The

point of the lesson has important theoretical implications, but explicit skills to guide reasoning

were difficult to determine. The lesson was received well, but it did not go far enough m

helping to build reasoning skill. Instruction could be strengthened by more explicit relationship

of the components (reasoning standards, attitudinal pitfalls, and reasoning fallacies) to the

students' own reasoning.

The students' application and evaluation of the Practical Thinking concepts could be

improved by increasing the personal experience that the students have with the concepts. This

could be achieved by requiring the application of the skills outside of class and then reportmg

back about discovered advantages and disadvantages. Also individual problem assignments and

short discussion papers for all lessons would give instructors the opportunity to provide feedback

to each student.

Reading?.

Initially the philosophy was to use readings (see Table 22) sparingly to minimize

students' study load. Plus materials corresponding to everyday reasoning and specific lesson

topics were scarce. With the reduction in class time that was experienced mid-way through the

course, special readings were prepared by the lesson author that directly addressed the rationale

and description of the lessons. The concepts were then reviewed, applied, and evaluated during

class time. These focused read-aheads put the students and instructors on common ground and

allowed a better pace to critically apply and evaluate the concepts. All the readings were judged

by the students responding to the ARI end of course evaluation to be clear and relevant to the

lessons. In future lessons, focused read-aheads for all topics, combined with out-of-class

assignments should improve acquisition of the skills.

Class size.

The 18 to 19 students that were in each instructor's early classes made it difficult to

conduct the exercises and discussions as desired. When class sizes were smaller (8 to 12) the

quality and quantity of discussion increased remarkably. In a larger group it was difficult to

elicit comments from every person or even from every group. Some individuals were reluctant

in the larger classes to participate, perhaps because the discussions were not as well focused.

Material and time.

There was not enough time to cover all the material and exercises prepared for a class.

Instructors adapted the teaching of the lesson to fit the time available. Often instructors did not

include prepared exercises or sufficiently review thinking practices with students after exercises

because of the lack of time. The amount of material to be covered may have been greater than

what the students were used to.

88
Table 22.

Reading Materials for Students.

Lesson

Introduction

Multiple

perspectives

Adapting to

situations

Finding

hidden

assumptions

Practical

reasoning

Integrat'rve

thinking

Reading/Handout

Strategies of Decision Making. Klein, G. (1989). Military Review, pp 56-64.

The Planners. Regan, G. (1987). Someone had blundered. London: Batsford. pp

76-99.

Techniques for Multiple Perspectives. Lesson author description, p 1.

GO FITE WIN. Lesson author description, p 1.

Probing presumptions. Neustadt, R. E. & May, E. R. (1986). Thinking in time.

New York: Free Press, pp 134-156.

Practical Reasoning. Lesson author description, pp 1-8.

Integrative Thinking. Lesson author description, pp 1-6.

Self-Awareness.

Some students seemed to lack an appreciation that they would be subject to problems of

thinking. If so, it would not be unexpected that they felt that the skills were not compelling

enough to consider trying and adopting. Assessment of students' thinking is a difficult issue.

Negative assessment could discourage the student about something as important and personal as

her or his thinking style. On the other hand little or no assessment may only reinforce poor

tendencies. A self-diagnostic instrument would be useful to give an individual some insight into

his or her style of thinking and accompanying pitfalls.

Qualifications.

Teaching Practical Thinking requires a switch for both students and instructors. Practical

Thinking is not so much taught as it is modeled and encouraged by instructors and self-learned

by students. Instruction needs to reinforce critical thinking and the production of different

ideas. Practicality, suitability and plausibility are important aspects of judgment in Practical

Thinking, but not at the cost of lessening the development of critical insight and broad views.

Regardless of who instructors are, training would be beneficial on how to best facilitate and

diagnose critical and creative thinking during exercises.

Student Assessments

At the end of the subcourse a six page evaluation survey was distributed. Twenty

students replied to this survey. Students gave predominantly positive ratings for the interest of

89
the topics, the mix of theory and application, the level of difficulty, and the coverage of the

topics (see Table 23). The students who responded rated the usefulness of the concepts for

MSF SIMEXs as 2.8 (on a 5 point scale, with 2 = not very useful, 3 = of use). They rated the

usefulness as 3.2 for future command and staff assignments and everyday situations (3 = of use,

4 = of considerable use).

Given the limited integration, reinforcement, and attention that was afforded the

Practical Thinking instruction, it still had a positive effect. On the average, student self-reports

reflected a gain of 12.5 percent in expertise for the six lessons (see Figure 9). Of the students

who responded to an end of course survey, eighty percent (16 of 20) felt that the course should

definitely be included in future CGSOC classes.

The overall comments offered by students ranged from "this is needed by all CGSOC

students" to "don't waste my time." Most comments indicated that the material has merit and

potential applicability. Many of these positive comments also provided suggestions about how to

improve the implementation. The course was seen as too fragmented in its implementation in

A308. One respondent indicated a preference for a military instructor.

Expert ise

J>y

«r.

/

?/

1

m

I After

i Before

Perspectives Adaptation Assumptions Reasoning

Lesson

I ntegrat ion

Figure 9. Self-reported expertise before and after instruction.

90
Table 23.

Frequency of Student Assessment Ratings for Practical Thinking Lessons

Lessons

Rating Categories

Multiple

perspectives

Adapting

to

situations

Finding

hidden

assumptions

Practical

reasoning

Integrative

thinking

Mostly already familiar 11 12 8 9 5

Somewhatnew 7 5 9 9 10

Mostly new 0 1 1 0 3

Not interesting 3 4 3 3 4

Somewhat interesting 12 14 12 12 10

Very interesting, thought-provoking 3 0 3 3 4

Too abstract 2 1 1 2 3

Mix of theory and application was about right 15 15 15 14 14

Too applied 0 3 1 1 0

Too difficult 0 0 0 0 0

Appropriate level of difficulty 13 12 14 13 • 14

Too simple 5 6 4 5 4

Too much of topic covered 0 0 0 1 1

Appropriate coverage of topic 13 14 13 12 12

Too little of topic covered 3 3 3 4 3

Too much time 5 6 4 4 3

Appropriate amount of time for material 10 9 10 11 11

Too little time 3 2 3 3 2

Need more practice 3 2 3 3 2

Appropriate amount of practice 11 11 11 11 12

Need less practice 3 4 3 3 3

Need more discussion 3 3 3 5 4

Appropriate amount of discussion 9 8 9 7 9

Need less discussion 5 6 5 5 4

Four of the 20 regarded the intent and approach of the practical thinking lessons

nonessential. They felt that the instruction would be appropriate earlier in their careers and

that thinking as a Major is so ingrained that there is not much chance of changing it. There

were additional unfavorable comments on the overall course and the Practical Thinking

subcourse recorded on a CGSC evaluation (Evaluation and Standardization Division, in

preparation).

91
Those indicating that the course should be offered in the future were mixed about the

type of class. Some thought it should remain a part of A308. Some were adamant that A308

was not the place for it. These students thought that (1) the MSF did not allow the Practical

Thinking concepts to flourish, (2) there were too many other agendas in the MSF, and (3) the

existing command environment constrained the implementation. (The "relatedness" of the

subcourse to the rest of A308 was rated a 2.7 on a 5 point scale, between "slightly unrelated" to

"somewhat related".)

One student found it surprising that the concepts of practical reasoning were taught, but

then suppressed during wargaming. This student continued, "The Army's institutional culture

and institutional dogmas continue to ignore the benefits of such concepts and training." Others

thought it should be a core course that all students would benefit from. Others wanted

additional material for continued self-development. Some examples of the positive comments

follow.

"Provide to entire CGSC academic environment."

"All CGSC students could use this information and practical experience before going

to units."

"I wish I could get future lesson plans and classes to continue my professional

development. The ARI portion of A308 was the most beneficial."

"The skills needed for integrative thinking requires years, not just a few classes. Need

follow through instruction and self-development packets."

"Focus on thinking first. This will help bridge the technology gap early. I thought all

of the ARI instruction was very useful and I wish there could have been more. I got

more from the ARI instruction than I did from A308 in terms of preparing me for my

next duty assignment."

Identifying Additional Skills

The current set of topics for the Practical Thinking instruction is not complete. To get

an idea what additional skills might be appropriate, students were surveyed on 15 new topics

generated by the subcourse author. The students were asked which would be most important to

include in future classes. The students were given a four point rating scale from very

unimportant to very important. They preferred the more applied topics (see Table 24),

specifically, visualizing the battlefield, maintaining focus in crisis situations, and applying

practical thinking to leadership. The next highest rated skills fell into a group that would be

more compatible with the emphasis already included. They were learning and memory,

implementing creative ideas, discovering problems, asking questions, and resolving conflicts.

These topics were close behind the top three skills.

Developer Assessment

As indicated in the summary of cognitive instruction programs, Sternberg (1984)

proposed criteria for selecting a program of instruction. He provided nine guidelines for

selecting cognitive instruction programs:

92
1. The program should have a sound psychological basis for what skills to teach and an

educational theory for the way they will be taught.

2. The program must accommodate the specific population that it is designed for.

Students must be able to relate the skills to themselves and to the world in which they

live.

3. The program should provide explicit training in the cognitive and metacognitive skills.

An important factor in metacognition is teaching when to use the skills.

4. The program should adequately motivate the students.

5. The program should take into account individual differences.

6. The program should make explicit links between the skill and the real world.

7. A program should be chosen based on a demonstrated track record in similar

situations.

8. The program should have a well-tested curriculum for teacher training.

9. Expectations should be appropriate for what the program can accomplish.

Since this Practical Thinking program was developed, it is appropriate to consider these criteria

for assessing the first trial of this material.

Table 24.

Ratings of Importance of Future Lesson Topics

Topic

Maintaining focus in crisis situations

Visualizing the battlefield

Applying practical thinking to leadership

Improving learning and memory skills

Implementing creative ideas

Discovering and recognizing problems

Asking questions to explore possibilities

Managing and resolving conflicts

Making predictions

Forming/testing hypotheses & working assumptions

Understanding the role of personality and emotions in thinking

Mentally simulating planned actions

Improving shared understanding

Using individual thinking skills in groups

Use representation techniques to structure problems

Average Rating

3.3

3.3

3.2

2.9

2.8

2.8

2.7

2.7

2.6

2.6

2.6

2.5

2.5

2.5

2.3

Instructor assessment of Sternbergs criteria.

1. Psychological and educational theories. The first of Sternberg's criteria recommended

that the program be based on a psychological theory of the intellectual processes it seeks to

train and on an educational theory of the way in which the processes should be taught. This

development focused more on the rejection of conventional instructional models, such as

normative decision theory and formal logic, than adhering to any one alternative model. The

93
program was associated with improving cognitive skills that conformed with naturalistic and

everyday reasoning approaches. These areas are not particularly finite to provide absolute

guidance for instructional programs. A naturalistic approach is not meant to be prescriptive and

should not be expected to lay out specific thinking processes. Perhaps the most notable

accomplishment of this Practical Thinking program was the advancement of the identification of

skills corresponding to the theories appropriate for battle command.

Considering the educational basis, the cognitive instruction program tried to follow an

andragogical model instead of a pedagogical one. The intention was to increase students'

responsibility in the learning process and to rely on their intrinsic motivation and self-awareness

for adoption and improvement of skills. The actual application did not conform to these

principles as closely as was hoped. Future instruction should take greater latitude in trying

alternative instructional practices for this subject matter.

2. Target population. The second of Sternberg's criteria recommends that the program

should be appropriate to the student populations for which it is targeted. The instruction was

geared for mid-career staff officers and future commanders of battalions and higher echelons.

Many tactical examples were used to convey teaching points. A wide range of Army examples

were included across the subcourse, relating to previous experiences students might have had at

platoon and company levels and might likely have in the future as-staff or commander at

battalion and higher levels. Also common, everyday examples were included that everyone in

the population were sure to understand (such as driving a car, dieting, sports, etc.). Yet there

did seem to be some disconnects with the students. There were signs that some students did not

accept the instruction as worthwhile. This could have been due to a variety of reasons, including

those already mentioned, e.g., lack of organizational emphasis, competing demands, lack of fit

with the rest of the battle command elective, or approaches that differed from the decision

making approaches taught elsewhere.

3. Cognitive skill training. The third criterion calls for explicit training in cognitive and

metacognitive skills. The program development emphasized this approach as indicated in

rationale and description of the lessons. This application was good considering that it was the

first attempt to make battle command thinking skills explicit. Undoubtedly, great improvements

can be made in the identification and instruction of the skills, especially the metacognitive ones.

4. Motivating students. Sternberg also recommended that a program should be

responsible to the motivational needs of the students. Some believe that it is impossible to

motivate others, you can at best only show them how to motivate themselves. The students were

shown the purpose of the lesson and skills and the value of overcoming the problems and

obstacles. The majority of the students were probably not highly motivated when it came to the

Practical Thinking instruction. Their concerns were more immediate as they served on the

semblance of a division staff and interacted daily with the Division Commander who directed

their attention on specific actions.

5. Individual differences. The fifth criterion deals with individual differences. Sternberg

feels that a program should be sensitive to individual differences. The instruction did this by

emphasizing that thinking skills are individually and situationally dependent. Students were

encouraged to examine their own skills. This was a strong point of this program, but could be

improved if students could be tested and feedback provided on their thinking styles and abilities.

94
6. Links to the real world. The training should have direct links to the real environments

in which they will be used. The approach taken in this program was to illustrate and exercise

the skills in representative command and staff settings, like the National Training Center. There

is an inherent problem in that thinking skills consist of subtle processes that are not usually

thought about by the thinker. When the skills are made explicit they can be linked to real-world

problems (or at least analogs of real-world problems). Because of differences in individual

knowledge and reasoning abilities, the links could appear to be more artificial than real.

7. Successful program. Sternberg's next criterion indicates that programs should be

selected based on a good track record. In this Practical Thinking program, teaching points were

based on the requirements analysis and in part the identification of good ideas from other

programs. There was no entire existing program that was appropriate for this application. The

lessons were a good first cut at a set of topics. The material within topics needs to be screened

to focus on a smaller set and this set explored in more depth during lessons. With the

experience from this first trial, experience-informed judgments can be made about material that

has greater potential than others. Future applications should take into account the experiences

with this program.

8. Teacher training. Another selection criterion proposed by Sternberg is that the

program should have a curriculum for teacher training. Since the developers were the teachers

in the quick response development, it was not as critical to have an explicit training program.

The teachers reviewed the material together for each lesson and shared ways of personalizing

the lessons. Currently teacher training consists of extensive background reading. Beyond

training, there is probably a critical selection factor for teachers. Key to future uses of this

program will be teachers who understand and generally agree to the Practical Thinking

philosophies. Teachers should have the ability to encourage discussions using the characteristics

of critical and creative thinking. Also they should be able to assess these skills and give

feedback as they occur.

9. Realistic expectations. From the beginning it was anticipated that the expectations of

the cognitive skills instruction might be greater than a limited first application could deliver.

The difficulties of cognitive instruction were identified in the requirements section of this report.

We said that developing cognitive instruction will be difficult because:

Theories of cognition are not well integrated or differentiated.

Any change in behavior will be difficult to observe and will occur over the long term.

Changes to thinking will initially cause delays and more effort.

These anticipated limitations were borne out. Assessing the skills covered in the instruction

were relegated to occasional observation during simulation exercises and self-report methods.

Summary.

The major accomplishment of this work is the development of the cognitive skill

instructional material. This instruction provides a unique application of an alternate view of

thinking, reasoning, and deciding to battle command and the consideration of new Army

technologies and organizations.

As Nickerson (1984) points out, "Putting greater emphasis on the teaching of thinking

95
skills in the classroom is a healthy development in U.S. schools. It should be recognized,

however, that the quest is an ambitious one and that a great deal of experimentation will be

required before truly satisfactory results can be obtained." (p 36). This last statement sums up

nicely the status of the Practical Thinking program.

96
Recommendations for Cognitive Skill Instruction

The Practical Thinking concepts were not embraced by all students, but overall the

favorable impressions outweighed the negative. The subcourse authors and instructors learned

valuable lessons about increasing the relevance and utility of the concepts and detected good

and bad ways to present the material. The generally positive reaction leads ARI to conclude

that the concepts should be continued to be explored and implemented. There are several new

efforts that are suggested by this application.

Assessment of Thinking

While it might be important to test intelligence or thinking abilities, objective testing may

have limited application for Practical Thinking. Much of the rationale of this instruction

(especially the integrative thinking lesson) is that Practical Thinking is not uniquely associated

with high intelligence (IQ). Perhaps instead of testing intelligence, what ought to be assessed is

the style and dispositions of thinking. Existing tests of critical thinking (e.g., Cornell Critical

Thinking Test [Ennis & Millman, 1985] and the Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal

[Watson & Glaser, 1980]) rely on the rules of formal logic for most of their test constructs.

These tests are easy to score but miss the point of critical thinking and multiple perspectives,

because they only give credit to a single answer that presumably corresponds to the "rational"

model of systematic and logical thought (e.g., see Norris, 1991). Also they do not incorporate

rich enough situations or context to make the test items representative of everyday thinking.

Instead of assessing objective reasoning, it may be sufficient to differentiate among thinking

styles. Existing frameworks and measures of thinking style are not particularly broad, only

assessing a single or few dimensions corresponding to narrow theories. There are no known

instruments that take a more comprehensive approach for measuring the styles of everyday

thinking. Frameworks and survey methods need to be developed to be able to gather diagnostic

information about the instruction. Particularly important to determine if there are individuals

that are not reachable with the Practical Thinking approach.

Implementation of Practical Thinking

Practical Thinking will possibly never be the favorite of some students, no matter how

much the subject matter, presentation, or integration with tactics are improved, however, the

value of developing problem solving skills should not be ignored. One important question that

we hoped to get insight into was the appropriate place for Practical Thinking in officer

education. We asked the students to rate the appropriateness of including creative and critical

thinking concepts in the various Army schools. The responses covered the range of Army

schools. Tied for the highest were the service academies and the Army War College. Next was

the School for Advanced Military Science (SAMS) and tied for fourth were CGSOC and the

officer basic course. Most striking about these results was that the average ratings of

appropriate timing for the instruction were about equal. The implication is that elements of

Practical Thinking could continue throughout a leader's career. Perkins (1984) points out a

supporting point that "[B]y far the better, although more difficult, path is to revise normal

schooling to foster creative thinking in all subjects" (1984, p. 22). Similary, the Practical

Thinking concepts are suitable in all phases of Army education and many types of CGSOC

classes.

97
First, repeating the application in the Battle Command Course, A308, is appropriate.

Now that various Practical Thinking concepts have been tried, it is clearer how to make teaching

points more practical. Some topics need to be more focused and covered in greater depth. A

20 hour block of instruction (see Table 25) should allow adequate time to address fundamental

concepts and for students to have more time to try out and assess some new ways of thinking

appropriate to the MSF. Inclusion into A308 would benefit from front-loaded scheduling,

continuity in lesson schedules, deliberate integration with MSF activities, and reinforcement

during SIMEXs. The last two imply that the MSF course authors and instructors should become

more familiar with Practical Thinking and support its application. The proposed 20 hours of

classtime should be augmented by placing more of the learning responsibility on the students

with increased writing and practical exercise assignments.

Since the affinity for this material was split, a second line of implementation would be to

provide Practical Thinking as a stand-alone elective. Those students who are interested in

improving their thinking would make a good target audience for the course. An elective would

be a good mode for continued exploration and formation of the concepts.

Another option is to incorporate the concepts of Practical Thinking into the leader

development curriculum. Merging of these concepts into those in C710 and A716 would further

reinforce the understanding and utility of alternate ways of thought. Some concepts have

already been transitioned into leader development courses.

One change may be increased attention to individual instruction on thinking instead of

using the group instructional model. GEN Franks' request was to determine how to formally

transmit the art of battle command and teach it at our institutions. This is only one way of

approaching the goal of improving leaders' thinking, reasoning, and decision making. An equally

Table 25.

Proposed Topics for Future Practical Thinking Lessons

Hours Topic

2

4

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

20

Introduction (where used, why important, critical thinking & standards, creative thinking)

Multiple perspectives (barriers, creativity, when to use)

Metacognition (decision triage, crisis decision making, reorganization, value of concepts)

Hidden assumptions (what else, detailed exercise, unexpected events)

Practical reasoning (uncertainty)

Integrative thinking (quick start questions)

Visualization (prediction)

Diagnostic (before & after testing)

Review & assessment

Total

98
or more feasible approach may be to find ways of addressing cognitive skills through the selfdevelopment pillar of leadership development. Since the nature of this subject is more abstract

and introspective than history and other topics taught using professional reading programs, ways

to make the skills more explicit need to be explored. Self-development of cognitive skills might

be a necessary piece to complement the staff instructional model.

Critical and creative thinking requirements most likely vary across an officer's career and

certainly differ from individual to individual. It would be appropriate to consider a program of

Army cognitive skill instruction geared to different ranks of officers. A series of modules on

Practical Thinking would be appropriate to develop and apply across Army and other military

schools. A simple approach would be to try the application at a lower level and a higher one.

Finally, without efforts like this trial subcourse there would not be opportunities to

develop different instruction and to assess the attempts to discern what changes merit further

consideration. If the development of Practical Thinking skills is to be successful it cannot be

viewed as a one shot effort.

"Another problem with special-purpose programs is the very limited time usually invested. . .

. The deeper difficulty may be that schooling in general works against the creative pattern of

thinking. Accordingly, instruction designed to foster creativity has to make up for the

shortcomings of normal instruction. . . . schooling is too 'right answer' oriented and has

little tolerance for the maverick." (Perkins, 1984, p 21)

The implications from a cognitive skills approach are many. Should the naturalistic,

everyday reasoning perspective catch on and be adopted beyond its role as an alternative to

standard Army decision making instruction, and used to replace the limited procedural models,

significant changes would result in command and staff procedures, training methods, and the

design and use of decision support systems. Searching for new perspectives on how battle

commanders and staffs do battle command, led to this instruction. This effort should not be

considered as the closing of a chapter, but the sketching of a new map for bringing the Army's

already-competent leaders to an even higher level.

99
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