There are currently six primary learning strategies used for training in the Army. These are programmed, traditional, exercise, small group, pure group, and mentor instruction.

Historically several of these strategies have been accepted as the way to training only to fail to meet the expectations of the Army in some way. Considerable training resources have been lost transitioning major portions of the Army's training program form strategy to strategy.

All of these strategies are useful, but none of them are "the way" to train. The purpose of this study is to propose criteria to help training developers to determine when to use a specific training strategy.

The student-teacher relationship which characterizes a strategy provides the key to determining when to use each strategy. Arraying these strategies along a continuum from the strategy with the most teacher structured learning environment (programmed instruction) to the least structured learning environment (mentorship) reveals that in each less structured strategy the student progressively takes more responsibility for his own learning. This change in the teacher -student relationship becomes increasingly appropriate as the maturity of the student in the area of study advances.

The progressive change in student-teacher roles is also marked by increasingly personal relationships from the relatively impersonal nature of programmed instruction to the intensely human relationships of mentor led learning. High levels of human interaction are required if the student is resistant to the training or if a high degree of personal commitment is desired form the student at the completion of training.

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William Melton