Policing is a profoundly cognitive profession. And: “This philosophical divergence is not an abstract academic quibble; it has significant practical implications for domains like policing.” Two quotes from an important article.
In the world of police and defense training, Scenario-Based Training (SBT) and the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) are often presented as if they belong to the same family of contextual, modern learning methods. They both reject isolated drills, they both prefer real or modified tasks, and they both claim to respect complexity.
But as Professor Chris Cushion argues in his article Thinking the (Policing) Game: Why Scenario-Based Training (SBT) is Not Ecological Dynamics (or CLA) in Disguise, the similarities between the two approaches are far thinner than they appear. As he puts it directly: “The resemblance is superficial, and the conflation obscures more than it reveals.”
Personal note
I use (d) both approaches and did podcasts with experts from both approaches. I do not write to divide but to unite. I also however feel the need to educate trainers in what different training approaches look like and stand for. Because, the use of them has practical consequences.
The title of my blog is: why do SBT and CLA diverge, but the real mission is…where do they converge?
The underlying question for me is :”Where and how can we integrate the wisdom of both traditions”?
Without being blind of some fundamental differences in how we look at learning and training.
The article
What follows in the article is not a critique of either system but an invitation to understand that they are built upon profoundly different assumptions about what learning is and how police officers develop expertise. Cushion describes SBT as a cognitively rich and conceptually structured model of learning — not simply “training with scenarios in it,” but, in his words, “a meta-model for learning — a bridge between evidence-based cognitive learning science and operational reality.”
It assumes that officers learn not just by doing, but by building conceptual structures that help them recognize patterns, reason tactically, understand legal and ethical frameworks, communicate under pressure, and transfer learning across situations. This is why Cushion states explicitly that SBT “is built upon a view of learners as thinkers. It assumes internal representations exist, that conceptual knowledge matters, and that reasoning underpins skilled action.”
Ecological Dynamics and the CLA take the opposite stance. Their foundations lie in radical embodied cognition and direct perception. Instead of treating the mind as a place where concepts form and influence action, ED/CLA sees action emerging directly from the coupling between the environment and the performer.
Cushion emphasizes this philosophical divergence when he writes that “ED/CLA is anchored in a radically different ontology… grounded in direct perception and radical embodied cognition.”
In this view, internal representations are unnecessary theoretical constructs, and the instructor’s job is not to facilitate explicit understanding but to design environments rich in affordances. Consequently, Cushion notes: “The learner’s mind is sidelined in favour of the environment’s design. The very practices that make SBT pedagogically powerful — conceptual framing, guided questioning, cognitive scaffolding — are rendered suspect or illegitimate within an ED/CLA framework.”
The instructor in CLA, Cushion notes, is not a facilitator of understanding but an environmental engineer. Scaffolding becomes contamination; reflection becomes distortion; instructional dialogue becomes unnecessary interference.
In SBT, the instructor is a designer of cognition. Cushion describes this role in detail: “The trainer’s role shifts from task-setter to cognitive architect, shaping, framing, layering, exaggerating, compressing, and simplifying problems so that learning remains tractable and purposeful.” Trainers guide attention, scaffold decision-making, and pose tactical questions. They help officers make sense of situations and manage cognitive load so that learning transfers to the real world. In his words: “By guiding attention, scaffolding decision-making, posing tactical questions, and managing cognitive load… understanding is developed.”
Cushion writes that in CLA the instructor “is not a facilitator of understanding but an environmental engineer.” Instead of shaping meaning, the instructor manipulates constraints, adjusts environments, and minimizes direct instruction. Cushion summarizes this shift clearly: “ED or CLA reduces the instructor to a constraint manipulator, designing affordance-rich environments but avoiding direct instruction.”
Again, this is not offered as a flaw of CLA but as the natural consequence of its theoretical stance: if behavior emerges from perception–action coupling, then explanation, dialogue, and conceptual scaffolding could indeed interfere.
For policing, however, Cushion argues that cognitive work is not optional. Officers must make sense of ambiguous social situations, anticipate unfolding events, make legal and ethical judgments, coordinate with colleagues, manage emotions under pressure, and communicate decisions afterward. For this reason, Cushion notes that “Policing is a profoundly cognitive profession.” This does not invalidate CLA, which excels at developing adaptability, perception–action coupling, and responsiveness under uncertainty. But it does mean CLA cannot, by design, address the full cognitive, ethical, and communicative demands of policing.
The constructive lesson I take from Cushion’s article is not that one method is superior to the other, but that the two approaches serve different purposes. SBT helps officers understand why actions matter, how to reason tactically, how to regulate emotion, and how to transfer knowledge across situations. CLA helps officers respond fluidly in real time when thinking becomes secondary or impossible.
Together, they can complement one another — but only if we respect the fact that they spring from different assumptions and are not interchangeable.
“The risk, however, is not only misunderstanding ED/CLA but allowing it to appropriate practices that do not belong to it. Increasingly, cognitively grounded SBT methods — tactical questioning, scenario shaping, thematic problem-framing, and progressive modification — are being relabelled with ecological/CLA terminology.
Tactical questioning becomes ‘affordance exploration’; scenario layering becomes ‘constraint manipulation’; thematic design becomes ‘representative learning design.’ In the process, the cognitive logic that animates these practices is stripped away. What remains is realism without reasoning, complexity without meaning, and experience without understanding.”
Rather than forcing SBT and CLA into competition, we can view them as two powerful lenses that illuminate different aspects of what police officers need to learn. Cushion’s argument helps us see why both are necessary — and why understanding their differences is the key to using them well.
The article ends with a positive statement: Ecological Dynamics and CLA have much to offer, especially in their emphasis on embodied learning and contextual adaptation. But if we are to prepare learners for the complexity of real policing and real life, we must reclaim cognition as central. SBT does just that. It presents tasks not just for performance, but for understanding. And in doing so, it reminds us that thinking in policing is not a luxury — it’s the point.
On the Mat — Practical Trainer Questions
- “When I run a scenario tomorrow, what exactly am I trying to train: understanding or emergent behavior — and does my design match that goal?”
If the goal is understanding, design SBT-style:
- introduce concepts
- give a tactical frame
- ask reflective questions
- scaffold decision-making
- debrief with meaning
If the goal is emergent behavior, design CLA-style:
- manipulate the environment
- adjust constraints
- reduce talking
- create affordances
- let solutions emerge
- “Before giving instructions, feedback, or questions — do I ask myself whether this is appropriate for the model I’m using right now?”
A trainer’s automatic habits (explaining, questioning, correcting, demonstrating) can undermine the method they think they are using.
If you are running SBT, you should use:
- questions
- conceptual framing
- cognitive scaffolding
- guided reflection
If you are running CLA, you must reduce:
- explanations
- feedback frequency
- conceptual talk
- “When an officer makes a mistake in my training session — do I respond by asking a question (SBT) or by changing the environment (CLA), and why?”
If your instinct is to ask:
- “What did you notice?”
- “What options did you see?”
- “What made you choose that moment?”
- “How could you reposition earlier?”
➡️ You are operating in SBT mode, where the instructor is a cognitive architect guiding understanding, reasoning, and meaning-making.
This aligns with Cushion’s quote: “By guiding attention, scaffolding decision-making, posing tactical questions… understanding is developed.”
If your instinct is to adjust the environment:
- reduce attacker speed
- change spacing
- modify affordances
- alter task constraints
➡️ You are operating in CLA mode, where the instructor is an environmental engineer shaping emergent behavior without verbal explanation.
This matches Cushion’s quote: “ED or CLA reduces the instructor to a constraint manipulator… avoiding direct instruction.”