Procedural or Conceptual Training: Which is Better for Teaching Novice Pilots Landings and Traffic Patterns?

Abstract

Forty-eight student pilots and recently licensed private pilots were randomly assigned to one of three training groups: procedural, conceptual, and control. Participants in the procedural group spent approximately two hours reading text and watching videos specific to the step-by-step procedures of how to fly traffic patterns and land an airplane. Participants in the conceptual group spent approximately two hours reading reasoning explanations, everyday metaphors to aviation, and viewing diagrams of traffic patterns and landings. Participants in the control group spent approximately two hours watching aviation-themed videos and reading aviation-themed text, but unrelated to traffic patterns, landings, or any other flight task. During training, participants answered questions specific to the material they were reading or watching. At the conclusion of the training participants were tested on typical and atypical traffic pattern performance, typical and atypical landing performance, and routine and non routine situations for 20 minutes in a medium fidelity flight simulator. Conceptual training was best for traffic pattern performance and atypical landings. Additionally, the conceptual group had better situation awareness than the procedural and control groups for landing situations and non routine traffic pattern situations. Finally, the procedural group did not show better performance than the control group on any test.