Literacy training: a simple solution for a complex world, says New Zealand Army

In this case study, we talk to New Zealand Army Lieutenant Colonel Richard Taylor about the Army’s goal of becoming a world-class army with mana – and the fundamental role of literacy training in that journey.

"Our people need the ability to adapt very quickly to changing circumstances. They need adaptability, agility of thinking and the ability to make sound decisions. These attributes rely largely on having solid literacy skills."

• Overview
• Assessing our needs
• Implementing a response
• Measuring the outcome
• Improving for the future
• Top tips
• Trainers and trainees tell their story
• 2010 Skills Highway Award success
• Any questions?

Overview

Three years ago the New Zealand Army began developing a framework to integrate literacy training with career development and basic army training.

Who is the New Zealand Army?

Almost 5,000 people work for the New Zealand Army and spend a large proportion of their time in training. Soldiers train for deployment, promotion and to qualify in a trade or gain tertiary qualifications relevant to their careers. Literacy training is now part of their army education too.

How is their training run?

Today’s recruits have their literacy and numeracy skills assessed when they join the Army. They enrol in literacy training run in-house by the Army’s Military Studies Institute (MSI). They take part in lessons tailored to suit their specific needs and that reflect real workplace scenarios.

And, each time a soldier wants to progress in his or her career, they first need to show they’ve got the literacy and numeracy skills to do so.

What do they expect to gain?

The top brass believe soldiers with strong foundation skills are more likely to think quickly and make the right decision when faced with difficult and complex situations.

They also say soldiering has become more complex in today’s world and the need for soldiers with strong literacy skills is more urgent now than ever.

Assessing our needs

Starting out

I could see literacy training would fit extremely well with the New Zealand Army’s vision to be a world-class army with mana – an army that is respected overseas and at home.

Our vision relies upon having cutting-edge people rather than cutting-edge technology. It’s about having people who are able to think and function in a variety of situations at home and on operations abroad. It’s about having people who can work alongside other defence forces and the people in the countries we go to.

All this means our people need the ability to adapt very quickly to changing circumstances. They need adaptability, agility of thinking and the ability to make sound decisions. These attributes rely largely on having solid literacy skills.

One of our first decisions was to establish a training framework suited to all soldiers throughout their careers. We wanted a framework that would help them meet the challenges of working and training at higher, more complex levels.

So, the New Zealand Army opted to align literacy training with career progression and the Army Training System – that’s the primary role of the framework.

Improving the bottom line

The nature and demands of modern military service are far greater and more complex today than at any time before. We must ensure our soldiers are best-placed to deal with new and changing environments and are ready for the challenges of the future.

We need to give them the skills to make fairly significant decisions at much lower levels of rank than was the case previously. Training programmes must enhance our soldiers’ thinking, agility and decision-making.

This, in turn, means we’ve needed to adapt the way we train soldiers. Traditionally, we’ve trained them to use a conditioned response to a set of circumstances that may be known.

By contrast, we now try (through literacy development and wider education programmes) to prepare soldiers – all 4,900 of them – for the unknown. We try to give them the critical thinking skills they need to make good-quality decisions in those unknown situations.

That’s how we’re using literacy training to improve our bottom line.

Implementing a response

Getting help

We are doing this work in-house. The unit responsible for developing the literacy framework and providing literacy training is the Military Studies Institute (MSI). Educators from MSI are spread throughout the country and provide literacy training and other education services to the various army camps.

Spreading the word

To help get people on board with the literacy training, we’ve developed an information pack for commanders (or leaders). It shares what’s involved, why we are doing what we’re doing and what they (the commanders) can do to support their soldiers and the organisation as a whole.

The senior leadership of the Army has been very supportive by cascading their support down through the ranks. Their support is critical to the success of what we are trying to achieve.

Making it work

We started to look at literacy training around the end of 2007 when, coincidentally, there was a great deal of negative publicity about New Zealand’s poor adult literacy skills.

We decided to screen-test the skills of our newest recruits as a first step. We screen-tested around 120 soldier recruits and about 30 officer cadets at Waiouru.

Results showed their literacy skills were on a par with other New Zealanders of their age group in the wider workforce. The results suggested that, if the situation was left unchecked, the Army could face significant challenges in the future.

So I briefed the then Chief of Army about the test results and their ramifications. I suggested that, with relatively minor effort and expenditure in the short term, we could develop a training framework that would essentially future-proof the Army.

Developing a training model

We started by developing a literacy framework (aligning literacy training with a soldier’s career and what they learn within the Army Training System) and went on to develop a series of literacy courses (or modules) from there.

We decided to steer clear of any negative connotations that can come from the word ‘literacy’ and have prefixed all our literacy modules with the title Communicate Effectively (followed by the level of the module concerned).

The approach works well. The New Zealand Army is all about communication and communicating effectively – so the words have been quite specifically chosen. By using the word ‘effectively’, we want to show that the learning modules will add value.

Our literacy training includes a package of foundation skills modules (for soldiers with significant learning needs in a particular area) and three Communicate Effectively modules.

Communicate Effectively (Level 1) provides soldiers with the literacy skills required to go on to do the Junior Non-Commissioned Officers’ Course and thereafter for service as lance corporals and corporals.

It’s is a week-long course that focuses on both literacy and numeracy. It involves one-to-one help and small group work. Lessons are based on real workplace scenarios that ask soldiers to develop a plan, coordinate with the relevant section to obtain resources and complete a specified task.

The next step in the framework, Communicate Effectively (Level 2), is currently being developed.

It is for soldiers preparing for the Senior Non-Commissioned Officers’ Course and thereafter for service as sergeants and staff sergeants. It will aim to give soldiers more advanced writing, speaking and critical-thinking skills. And, again, it will complement existing training.

The third step, the Communicate Effectively Course (Level 3), will be for soldiers preparing for promotion to warrant officer.

In this case we want to give aspiring warrant officers the skills they need to complete their service paper (a specialised essay), which is a requirement for the role. In it, they must identify a specific work-based problem, critically think about the problem, discuss options for solving the problem and recommend their preferred solution.

Compared to the other two courses, Communicate Effectively (Level 3) will place a much heavier emphasis on critical thinking, research techniques and decision-making. It will walk people through what’s required to effectively draft a service paper.

We’d also like to build in a process to enable soldiers to keep improving in certain areas. We need to give them the opportunity to keep practising and refining their skills on the job. It’s about enabling them to keep putting themselves in a position to face and master a particular literacy challenge. That way they can consolidate the skills they’re gaining.

Measuring the outcome

Reflecting on the data

Over time we would like to monitor the impact of literacy training through:

1. improved performance in training across the board
2. fewer soldiers failing courses because of literacy problems
3. fewer retests because of literacy problems
4. more effective training (as our instructors learn how to tailor their training to meet the needs of their students)
5. improved retention rates.

The ultimate measure will be the quality of decision-making by our personnel, whether on operations abroad or here at home.

Listening to our people

So far feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. Soldiers who participate in the training enjoy it and there is growing support throughout for the framework and learning modules.

Improving for the future

Embedding change

It’s essential that we continue to create learning modules that are specific to both the workplace and to an individual’s learning needs. That’s one key thing we’re taking from this work.

For example, say we have two soldiers (let’s call them soldier A and soldier B). Soldier A’s test results show he needs assistance with sentence and paragraph construction and multiplication. Meanwhile, soldier B just needs help with multiplication.

Soldier A will complete two modules on sentence and paragraph construction and multiplication within Communicate Effectively (Level 1), while soldier B can come in and just do the multiplication module. Neither needs to sit through modules on topics or areas they already understand.

It’s a good way to tailor training. Another way is to ensure our trainers work well with their intended audience. We’ve achieved that with Communicating Effectively (Level 1).

It is run by junior army educators, who are similar in age and career stage to their students. The junior educators help break down some of the barriers soldiers may have had at school. Soldiers see the educator as being similar to themselves – someone who wears the same uniform as them, is going through the same training system as them and who probably socialises with them. They see the army educator more as a friend and a mentor, than as a teacher in the traditional sense.

Making it sustainable

We’re changing what we do across the board thanks to our focus on literacy training. We’ve got the literacy framework for starters. Now we’re taking what we’ve learned from it and embedding that knowledge into other areas of the organisation.

For example, MSI was contacted by an army instructor about the disappointing pass rates relating to a training module called The Laws of Armed Conflict. It covers topics such as the Geneva Convention and the treatment of prisoners of war.

It is a half-day module taught as part of basic training and induction training. All recruits take the module and are then tested. It was found, however, that about 95% of soldiers were failing the test and, as a result, having to be re-tested.

When we looked at the test questions, we found they were too complicated. They included a lot of legal jargon, which meant little or nothing to the target group.

But we addressed the problem by rewriting the questions to reflect the language used by learners. The questions were the same. They were just phrased in language they would understand.

Immediately, test results changed from a 95% fail rate to a 95% pass rate. That simple exercise showed us how important it is to target our training materials to learners.

It also showed us that there’s a lot we can learn – as trainers – from knowing more about literacy, language and numeracy teaching. That’s something we’re working on.

For example, we’ve begun providing literacy awareness training to other trainers throughout the New Zealand Army. The training aims to highlight the issues surrounding workplace literacy, the implications of poor literacy for student learning and looks at how they – as instructors – can better meet their students’ literacy needs.

Taking stock

To me, it’s clear that investment in literacy development benefits everyone from the individual to the organisation they work for, their family and wider society. And, like any journey that is worth taking, the literacy journey starts with the first step.

Top tips

1. Achieve organisational excellence by investing in the literacy skills of your people.
2. Understand that literacy training is good for individuals, the organisations they work for and their families and wider society.
3. Use literacy training to strengthen and get more from other training programmes.
4. Read and follow the evidence on effective literacy training. It shows training should reflect a learner’s own working and living environment for best results.
5. See literacy training as something that is ongoing and long term. Don’t see it as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

Trainers and trainees tell their story

We talk to three of the trainers and two of the trainees about the training.

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2010 Skills Highway Award success

New Zealand Army received 'Highly commended' at the 2010 Skills Highway Award. 2010 Skills Highway Award Expand this image

Any questions?

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