Innovative Materials for Lightweight Armor

The Phase II objective is to develop web-based training that increases Army officers' critical thinking ability. The need for such training was confirmed by the results of Phase I where it was shown that (1) critical thinking (CT) skills are important toBattle Command success, (2) poor CT performance creates serious problems for Command/Control, and (3) military curriculum does not train CT skills effectively. This research and development project provides a unique opportunity to combine tacticalexpertise with leading edge developments in psychological theory. Phase II will focus on development of high-quality information content to support training of critical thinking skills. An integrated network of military officers, training developers,computer scientists, and end users will form an advisory panel whose task it will be to guide development of the content and form of the proposed training. Phase II subsumes four tasks designed to (1) validate the theory of critical thinking developed inPhase I by conducting innovative experimental studies of CT, (2) shepherd results of the experimental studies into content for developing CT training modules, (3) implement training modules on the worldwide-web, and (4) evaluate effectiveness of theweb-based training using students drawn from the schoolhouse and tactical field units.