User's Guide for Tactical Thinking Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales

Abstract

Abstract : An ongoing need exists in the Army to enhance combat leaders' tactical thinking skills. In conjunction, measurement techniques must be developed to assess tactical thinking skills. This research product is a user's guide for the Tactical Thinking Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (T-BARS). The purpose of T-BARS is to measure an individual's cognitive proficiency in tactical thinking. The guide describes the use of four scales that enable researchers to measure cognitive proficiency along critical dimensions of tactical thinking by coding behaviors that are observable in the context of training sessions, exercises, or experiments. Themes of tactical thinking identified in the Think Like A Commander program formed the basis of T-BARS. The user's guide provides information on making assessments and establishing interrater reliability. Section II describes the theoretical foundations of T-BARS by discussing the role of mental models in cognitive performance and the manner in which T-BARS attempts to measure mental model maturity in the tactical thinking domain. Section III provides instructions for using T-BARS in assessment, from collecting suitable data, to coding, to scoring the ratings to produce a cognitive profile for the individual who has been assessed. Section IV, Establishing Interrater Consensus, provides recommendations for establishing consensus between raters using T-BARS in the same or similar settings. Section V contains the T-BARS assessment tool.