What if your training teaches exactly the wrong thing?
Every trainer knows the feeling. You have carefully designed a scenario, thought about the learning objectives, created realism and added pressure. Everything seems right. But what if the trainee is learning something completely different from what you intended? In this episode of the Erik Hein Academy Podcast, I talk with human factors researcher Joel Suss about training scars: the unintended things people may learn in training that can show up later when it matters most. As Joel puts it: “All of these training scars, no one goes out to create them.” And perhaps that is exactly what makes them so interesting—and potentially dangerous.
We begin with an almost unbelievable story about a police officer who had practised one particular response hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times. Then one day, reality tested what training had actually taught him. From there, Joel and I explore a deceptively simple question: what exactly is a training scar? Is it merely another name for negative transfer, automaticity or context-dependent learning? Or does the concept point to something those academic terms don’t quite capture? As Joel says: “Training scars seems to capture something much closer to the police training environment.”
That question quickly takes us into the heart of scenario-based training. What happens when we repeatedly connect one stimulus to one response? When does repetition build expertise—and when might it quietly narrow our options? We discuss firearms training, shoot/no-shoot decisions, the OODA loop, ambiguous scenarios and a remarkable example involving officers who trained with guns that could not actually fire. Joel’s warning is simple: “If you always paint really clear situations for people and that’s all they ever do, then that’s kind of a recipe for disaster.”
But training scars are not only about behaviour. One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation comes from an unexpected field: healthcare simulation. Researchers there have also discussed psychological training scars. That opens a very different conversation about instructors, stress, evaluation, peer pressure and psychological safety. What happens when a learner freezes? Should we keep the scenario running and debrief afterwards—or intervene while it is happening? And what are students actually learning when they are more afraid of looking incompetent in front of colleagues than of making mistakes? Joel captures an alternative beautifully: “If I’m going to make mistakes, I want to make them here and not out on the street.”
Ultimately, this episode is not an argument against realism, repetition, stress exposure or scenario training. It is an invitation for trainers and educators in police, defence and acute care to look at their own training through a different lens. Not only: What did I intend to teach? But: What did my students actually practise? What did the environment reward? And what might they be learning without me noticing it? Joel leaves us with perhaps the most uncomfortable—and useful—question of the conversation: “Forget about what your intentions are and just look at what is happening in a training session… What does that actually incentivize?” After this conversation, you may find yourself watching your next training session very differently.
Reflection
1. What Are My Participants Really Learning?
You have learning objectives and good intentions. But Joel asks a much more uncomfortable question:
“Forget about what your intentions are and just look at what is happening in a training session… What does that actually incentivize?”
Reflection: What behavior does your training actually encourage—including behavior you never intended to teach?
Call to action: During your next training session, choose one exercise. Watch it for five minutes as if you had not designed it yourself. Then write down two things:
What I intended to teach → What I actually saw participants practice.
If there is a gap, change one small element of the exercise.
2. Where Am I Training the Rule Without the Exception?
Repetition can be useful. But when if X, then Y becomes too dominant, people may stop learning to recognize when Y is not the appropriate response. Joel warns:
“If you always paint really clear situations for people and that’s all they ever do, then that’s kind of a recipe for disaster.”
Reflection: Which response do you have participants practice so often that they may not be learning when not to use it?
Call to action: Take one familiar drill and add one exception during your next session. Change just one relevant cue so that the usual solution is no longer the best one. Afterwards, ask:
“What did you notice that made you decide to do something different?”
3. Is My Training a Place to Perform—or a Place to Learn?
Training can unintentionally create a fear of making mistakes, especially when colleagues are watching, instructors are evaluating, or participants feel they have to prove that they are competent. Joel describes a very different mindset:
“If I’m going to make mistakes, I want to make them here and not out on the street.”
Reflection: What do you do as a trainer that helps participants genuinely experiment and make mistakes—and what might you be doing that makes them focus mainly on looking competent?
Call to action: Start your next scenario with one sentence:
“Today, I don’t want to see who can do this perfectly; I want to discover what we can learn.”
Then, during the debrief, choose one interesting mistake and explore it without judgment: What did you notice? What were you trying to achieve? What happened? What would you try next time?
The Overarching Question for Trainers
Not: “Did I teach this well?”
But: “What did my training actually teach today?”