Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 3, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2018 | Page 46

Strategic Warning and Anticipating Surprise: Assessing the Education and Training of Intelligence Analysts
work done by individual students and an individual student threat analysis project.
Intelligence analysis courses utilize a number of Heuer and Pherson’s (2014)
Structured Analytical Techniques, to include: Analysis of Competing Hypotheses
(ACH); What If Analysis; Red Teaming; and Indicators Analysis. The course also
uses Clark (2016) based on formal modeling and case studies.
Stephen Marrin, Associate Professor in JMU’s Integrated Science and Technology
program, noted that the faculty members in the program employ a variety of
pedagogical styles in teaching different courses. For his knowledge-based courses,
he recognizes the challenge in teaching undergraduates that they do not often read
the assigned materials. Therefore, he assigns papers that have as a requirement: answer
a question by referencing key content from each of the assigned readings into
a holistic, synthetic evaluation of the course content, which provides a platform
for the students to develop their evaluative and argumentative skills (the core skills
of the strategic intelligence analyst). Marrin also has students prepare strategic
intelligence assessments in a capstone course. Students in this course can choose
a client for whom they will present their paper as the consumer of the product, or
they can produce it as a self-initiated product. Since this is a two-semester course
process, students must pick a topic, choose a research question, identify methods
to employ, and then implement the research design by learning in a trial and error
way, where they continually revise their research design and ultimate product.
Marrin stated that his goals, as a political scientist teaching social context in an
intelligence analysis program, are to one, give students knowledge about aspects
of intelligence, intelligence analysis, and national security decision-making; two,
be diagnostic and give the students a chance to decide if national security intelligence
analysis (or intelligence, or analysis, or national security) is the right path
for them; and three, be preparatory, as Rob Johnson (2005) referred to it, a kind of
“sociological acculturation” ... a preparation for what it takes to do analysis well.
Marrin notes that JMU’s Intelligence Analysis Program is very much like the new
pre-med degree programs, which go beyond science education to now include a
multidisciplinary approach which includes a social context, e.g., including courses
in philosophy, psychology, and sociology, with the goal being a solid knowledge
foundation for those who choose to go to medical school after graduation (Marrin
2009).
At CCU, multiple faculty teach INTEL 310 Intelligence Analysis and each
brings in their own pedagogy to enhance learning. In the introductory course,
INTEL 200, however, where students are first exposed to Intelligence Analysis, all
faculty use Jensen, McElreath, and Graves (2012) Introduction to Security Studies.
In his INTEL 310 classes, Kilroy begins by discussing critical thinking using literature,
such as Heuer (1999), Moore (2007), and Facione (2015). The course then
focuses on teaching Structured Analytical Techniques, using Heuer and Pherson’s
(2014) text, along with Beebe and Pherson’s (2014), Cases in Intelligence Analysis:
Structured Analytic Techniques in Action. Students work in teams assigned to spe-
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