As with visualization, simulation can provide several benefits to your learning performance:
· Cost-effective when learning new tasks. When task performance is expensive or exhaustive, simulation can provide cost-effective instruction. Examples include flight training or practicing surgery.
· Good training environment. Simulators often provide a better learning environment than the real equipment or environment. With a flight simulator, it’s usually not as noisy. You can more easily carry on a conversation with an instructor. You can pause to focus on some part of a procedure, and many simulators allow you to see a graphical representation of your performance.
· Variability. Simulation can introduce variations in training that may be difficult or dangerous to do with the real equipment. It’s usually safer. The worst mishap might be falling off your chair!
· Part task training. You can focus on individual parts of your training, and then combine them when you’ve learned each one.
These benefits do not come without implications however. Most simulation is only part task training, meaning you do not get the full task environment. Training on real equipment, performing the real tasks, is usually a full task training method. You still need to do full task training to consolidate what you learned during simulation.
You also need to work with a knowledgeable instructor to get the most benefit from simulation. If you don’t first learn the right method for a particular task, you can experience negative transfer. Negative transfer occurs when you have to relearn something because you learned or repeated it the wrong way. This can take more time and be dangerous in times of stress.
Here is an example of negative transfer with students that first learn to fly on a PC based simulator at home. If asked to hold a certain angle of bank (lean), students who have first learned on a simulator often look at the instruments to set and hold that bank angle. When learning to fly visually in the real aircraft though, they have to unlearn this behavior. They have to learn to look at the horizon to set and hold the correct bank angle.
You may want to use a script to get the steps and timing correct in the early stages of learning a new task or skill. For example, write down the sequential steps of a landing and place this in front of you. Another idea is to work with your instructor and record a series of procedures onto a cassette or computer. Listen to the recording and practice the procedures. This works well with basic simulators.