We always explain to our clients that, in order to determine the most appropriate training modality (virtual, semi-face-to-face or face-to-face) for a given action, it is necessary, first of all, to clearly identify what the objectives and learning contents of the course are.. The objectives must describe the professional competences that are intended to be achieved through the completion of courses.
They are, therefore, objectives written in the key of competences and these are made up of factual and conceptual components (what you need to know: knowledge), procedural (what you need to know: techniques, methods, strategies, skills…) and attitudinal (how it should be: values, norms and attitudes).
Since each of the components of the competences is learned in a different way, the training process will depend on the relative importance of each of the contents in them. This is how the convenience of one or another training modality will depend on the weight of the components of the competencies, defined with the objectives and specified in the learning content. All this is the pedagogical design work of each course and must be carried out by expert professionals, in order for it to be effective.
Factual content is understood as the collection of facts, events, situations, data and specific and singular phenomena. The singularity and its character, descriptive and concrete, are its defining features. We consider that learning occurs when the participant is able to remember the factual content and express it in the same way as the original.
Conceptual content is understood as those facts and principles whose meaning needs to be understood, going beyond the reproduction of more or less literal statements. We cannot say that a concept or principle has been learned if its meaning has not been understood. Therefore, they are part of the student's knowledge not only when he is able to repeat the definition but when he knows how to use it to interpret, understand or expose it.
Thus, the factual and conceptual contents imply what one should know: knowledge.
A procedural content is a set of ordered and finalized actions, that is, aimed at achieving an objective. Therefore, they imply a 'know-how' based on expert models. The repetitive performance of the actions that make up the procedure or strategy is the starting point.
Thus, the procedural contents involve what one should know how to do: skills.
Finally, the attitudinal contents can be classified according to values, attitudes and norms. Learning attitudinal content always implies an affective link but they have different connotations depending on whether they are values, attitudes or norms.
A value will have been acquired when it has been internalized and criteria have been developed to take a position before what has been considered positive or negative. In this internalization, the cognitive component is the key piece. An attitude will be acquired when the person thinks, feels and acts in a more or less constant way before the specific object to which the attitude is directed. A norm will be internalized when there is an acceptance of the basic rules of the group it governs.
Thus, the attitudinal contents imply how one should be: 'trade', attitude and code of values.
Air traffic controllers and attitudinal components
Well, many Spanish citizens have just experienced a wild and uncontrolled strike by air traffic controllers. It was 2,400 professionals, apparently trained and very well paid, who harmed the interests of many millions of people with the only argument, weak and selfish, of trying to defend their particular labor interests.
Regardless of the opinion that each one has on the Government's action in this matter, regardless of what is thought of the demands of this group, excessive or not, it is obvious that these people did not demonstrate adequate values, did not adopt an attitude professional nor respected any elementary ethical standards. They acted as whimsical individuals, revolutionizing an entire country and producing very dangerous chaos (I'm afraid a lot more dangerous than it seemed).
Therefore, its attitudinal component was below minimums, something unheard of in people with such responsibility. They may well bear in mind the factual, conceptual and procedural content of their trade, but the attitudes, which are so critical in this and other jobs, were conspicuous by their absence.
Knowing this, how can we leave our lives in the hands of these people, every time we fly? Can a patient be operated on by a doctor who, if they do not pay him what he believes is fair, leaves the patient open in the canal on the operating table and says that the matter is not his thing? Would it be logical to think that the driver of a school bus would leave the vehicle lying in the middle of any secondary road, with the children inside, just because he wants to claim his salary?
Words like ethics and honesty, expressions like professional itch or not making the righteous pay for sinners (if there are any in this matter, apart from them) and being minimally rational, will they sound anything to you? I do not understand with what criteria these individuals can control anything important. Have they not received any attitudinal training or is it that they have left it in the safe of their house, along with all the money they earn per month? Who has given them an example, who has transmitted values to them or in what world do they live?
I sincerely hope that mechanisms will be put in place to train new air traffic controllers, serious and consistent people, who listen to their mentors when they transmit positive attitudes, who know how to adequately convey their requests and without harming the innocent.
In the end, the good attitudinal components are what our grandparents explained to us, at least to those of us who were lucky enough to have excellent grandparents as a server, and I sincerely believe that it is essential never to forget them, no matter how mistreated you feel at work..
I think that AENA air traffic controllers would have needed several hundred hours of attitude training before December 3 and I hope that someone will think about it, and not just the facts, concepts and procedures, before training those who come after.
