EP 8 Building Adaptive Decision Makers with Dr. Joel Suss

All law enforcement instructors would agree that one of the core functions of police skills training is to develop great adaptive decision-making skills in our officers. The question that must be asked is, what is the relationship between instructor / coach feedback methods and the development of independent adaptive decision-making and, are there proven techniques that work better than others?

In this interview, we talk with decision-making expert Dr. Joel Suss about several critical components of training that should be understood and implemented in order to accomplish these important training objectives.

Topics covered in this interview include recognition-primed / naturalistic decision making, the use of effective probing questions to get ‘inside the students head’, the effective use of story-telling, and the application of the ‘7 cognitive skills’ to guide the student to understand, assess and correct their own decision-making and performance.

This interview contains helpful practical insights on how trainers should consider adjusting training methodology to improve officer performance.