Virtual Environments (VE) afford numerous benefits over "real world" training, including greater instructional flexibility and performance assessment. VE simulations allow instructors to enhance environmental stimuli and provide specific immediate feedback in teaching specific skills or patterns of behavior. The U.S. Army Research Institute has established a research program in VE technology in order to investigate the wide range of potential approaches and application contexts. Different Instructional Strategies can provide combinations of different classes of examples, and cuing tactics can provide graphic cues, auditory or textual information. These strategies are implemented through the use of Instructional Features. This paper expands the instructional features conceptual framework in VE, and tests specific instructional features for inclusion in future VE-based training programs. Finding the optimal way to impart skill and knowledge in an explicit and directed manner is the major research focus. This initial experiment addressed learning terrain assessment and understanding for movement and positioning, through the use of an attention-direction graphic and a specific within-mission interrogative coaching style, applied during entry-level learning exercises in a completely crossed experiment. The results from the post-training test exercise found that with one of the cognitive-based evaluative activities the interrogative coaching was significantly better than the no-coaching condition. The attention-direction graphic did not provide significant improvement over the no-graphic presentation condition, during the test exercise. This indicates that for initial learning of different types of complex activities, different instructional tactics and features can provide significant advantages, but much remains to be learned about the optimal use of different strategies, tactics, and instructional features. A follow-on experiment using a different graphic, a different coaching style, and different presentation tactics will also be described. The results of these experiments will provide information for training guidelines incorporating instructional features in the wide range of training environments envisioned for the Future Force.