Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 105

TRANSFORMING TRAINING

Sgt. Victor Garciaramos, an observer/controller/trainer from 1st
Battalion, 361st Engineer Regiment, Task Force Redhawk, 5th Armored Brigade, gives feedback to soldiers of the 485th Military Police Company, Nevada Army National Guard, 15 September 2011
during fundamentals of patrolling training at McGregor Range,
New Mexico. (Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Alejandro Sias, 5th Armored
Brigade, First Army, Division West, Public Affairs)

across the objective with personnel alternating between
stationary and moving. Those moving do so rapidly
while exposing themselves as little as possible, and those
stationary are presenting as little of themselves as possible while providing direct covering fire as necessary.
The problem is that this rarely happens. Often, units
will clear the objective all at once with no stationary
element providing supporting fires. And, in the worst
cases, those moving personnel will walk across the objective with no consideration of cover or concealment,
presenting themselves as the largest targets possible to
the enemy. A behaviorist would look at this problem
and prescribe more repetitions.
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2016

The
behaviorist
would identify the lack of
bounding as a
behavior that
needs correction and
would create
conditions for
the soldiers
to bound
more often to
build a habit
of bounding.
A constructivist would
identify why
the soldiers
were not
bounding and
use education
to modify
the decision
making the
soldiers used
so that they
would choose to bound under similar situations in the
future. The constructivist would be more focused on the
cognitive processes used by the soldiers because research
shows students’ actions are rational given the way that
they perceive the conditions.26 Soldiers do not fail to
bound because of lack of knowledge of how to bound;
they fail to bound because, in their “reality,” they do not
perceive a need. Perhaps this is because the soldiers never
had to bound in the video games they played, neither
in commercial games nor in Army virtual battlespace
simulations. Or, possibly, their previous experiences may
tell them that there is no threat, because they have never
received fire while clearing an objective. Or, if their reflexive-fire training was always conducted from the standing
position, they may be more comfortable firing from that
position. All of these could be valid assumptions, and all
could result in different prescriptions for how to address the problem. Though both the behaviorist and the
constructivist may have arrived at similar conclusions
regarding the problem, the constructivist analysis allows
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