The effect of training systemic information on the retention of fault‐finding skills in manufacturing industries

This study examines how the process of skill retention (including both recall and reconstruction) can benefit from systemic training information that covers several structural, functional, physical (e.g., causal links), and supervisory features (e.g., system control and instrumentation). An experiment was carried out in which a group of participants who received systemic information was compared to a group trained in plant theory and to another three groups trained in heuristics that ranged in terms of high‐ and low‐level diagnostic information. Learning curves revealed that all groups achieved high accuracy scores in diagnosing faults in a distillation plant. Six weeks later, a retention test showed that the systemic group (S) had a better recall score than the groups trained in theory (T) and high‐level heuristics (HH). In addition, the S group had a better reconstruction score than the groups receiving the high‐ and low‐level heuristics (H+) and the low‐level diagnostic information (HL). An interesting finding was that high‐level diagnostic information seemed to support the reconstruction phase of the retention process, whereas low‐level information better supported the recall phase. Overall, it appeared that systemic information enabled trainees to acquire task cues to help recall and reconstruct diagnostic heuristics. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 14: 197–217, 2004.