Some Alternative Methods of Predicting Performance among Professional Drivers in Training

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Abstract
Fifty-two men were tested on the 7th day of a 5 weeks' course of instruction in bus-driving. Half of them had driven other vehicles previously, half had not. Half were recent immigrants to the British Isles, half were native. Time taken to drive around a standard circuit in traffic was measured and performance was scored on a subsidiary auditory task involving immediate memory. Driving skill was also judged subjectively by the experimenter on the 5th (practice) day. At the end of the course 24 (46 per cent) of the trainees passed the driving test for Public Service Vehicles, 11 (21 per cent) failed and 17 (33 percent) had their training discontinued after failing intermediate progress checks. None of the test scores could be used reliably to distinguish the “ passed ” from tho “ failed ” group (p⩽ 0-05), but there was a significant difference between their pooled scores and those of the ‘discontinued ’ group, (a) on the subsidiary task (p⩾ 0-0022), (6) on driving time (7)⩾ 0-000O7 and (c) on tho subjective judgments made by the experimenter ( ⩾ 0-001). Previous driving experience was significantly associated with passing the driving test only when that experience had been gained in the British Isles (p⩽ 0-02). It is concluded that applicants for a driving course of limited duration could be preselected on previous experience and that potential failures could be identified early in training both subjectively and objectively. As a measure of transfer of training, performance on the subsidiary task was more sensitive than either speed of driving or subjective judgments.

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