description “ Given an example weapon system, the student will be able to discover material relevant to the given weapon system and explain the material’s

relevance to the weapon system clearly, accurately, and precisely in verbal and written formats” (Baker, 2017, slide 38).

Constraints and partial remedies. Task 3 was assigned at the end of the second day of training, which was the final scheduled day. Student-participants were offered the opportunity to opt-out of completing the task. Two students, “Sally” [pseudonym] and “Joe” [pseudonym] chose to complete it during their personal off-duty time between Friday and Monday. “Bill” [pseudonym] was unable to complete the task due to other commitments. Student-participants were unavailable to be evaluated on the verbal component of the task; however, they each provided their required responses and responded to additional electronic mail and text message solicitations.

Expectations. Student-participants were given three days to research available resources for a given weapon system. “Sally” [pseudonym] was assigned the Mi-24,

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Hind, and “Joe” [pseudonym] was assigned the Mirage 2000. Both weapon systems were unknown to them. Student-participants were required to discover any sort of relevant resource that they felt helped them gain a better understanding and personal connection with the weapon system, and they were required to provide a written response, in their own personal style, that conveyed the relevance of the material to the aircraft and to their own learning. Student-participants were required to evaluate themselves by using

universal intellectual standards as their rubric.

Assessment. Student-participants were evaluated on their ability to convey their findings in accordance with the universal intellectual standards, and they were each provided feedback on their product. These electronic mail feedback sessions are recorded as informal feedback in the following section of this DiP.

Cycle 2: Action Research

Three of the 15 participants from the first action research cycle, who were permanently-assigned to the research site, were selected for participation in the second cycle. While planning to conduct the this action research study, a larger participant population was expected; however, only the three participants, identified in this study by rank and pseudonym, were available for the study due to USAF deployments, prior commitments, and unit mission requirements. Of the three studied, only one student- participant was previously mission qualified. The student-participants did, however, provide a strong sample of the diversity that is common in the USAF intelligence community.

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“Sally” [Pseudonym]. This study captured demographic data, semi-structured interview, field-observation, pretest, posttest, and informal feedback data from “Sally” who was unknown to the participant-researcher prior to the present study.

Demographic data. “Sally” [pseudonym] is a 29 year-old white female who has earned a Bachelor’s degree with double majors in Japanese Language and Culture and International Affairs. She has served on active duty in the USAF for fewer than two years, and she graduated from the USAF’s basic intelligence officer course within two months prior to the study. She had not begun the study site’s unit intelligence training and was not mission qualified for the unit’s intelligence mission.

Semi-structured interview perceptions. I conducted an interview with “Sally” [pseudonym] in my office. Even after introductions, “Sally” [pseudonym] was reluctant to respond to my interview questions. Assessing that she may be intimidated by

conducting an interview with the study site’s senior intelligence officer, I attempted to ease the tension by using the moment to mentor a young officer. After the mentoring session, “Sally” [pseudonym] was more willing to attempt to respond to the interview questions.

When asked what vis-recce training she had received during her recent basic intelligence training experience, “Sally” [pseudonym] responded that the schoolhouse did not have a block of instruction dedicated to “vis-recce.” She remarked that there was some mention of it as part of the total form concept discussions students had when they were required to prepare threat intelligence briefings (personal communication, January 7, 2017). Since “Sally” [pseudonym] had little prior experience with “vis-recce,” she could assessed from her experience that its purpose was to help gain a greater

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understanding of a threat system’s capabilities (personal communication, January 7, 2017).

When it was clear that “Sally” [pseudonym] did not have a background in vis- recce that would provide any additional support for the study, I asked her what sort of critical thinking or analysis training she had received in the basic intelligence course. She did not recall any blocks or elements of instruction that were dedicated to critical thinking or analysis. She replied that she felt like the school simply focused on threat knowledge and briefing skills (personal communication, January 7, 2017). Upon completion of the interview and mentoring session, “Sally” seemed pleased with the upcoming training opportunity.

Pretest results. “Sally” [pseudonym] correctly answered 0 of 13 items (0 percent) on the Microsoft PowerPoint-based pretest. She attempted to answer 10 of the 13 items, and filled in the blanks with humorous responses (e.g., “grasshopper” and “”) for the final three (personal communication, January 10, 2017). Her responses to each of the items were far from being comparable to the intended response, except that she identified the F-15 Eagle as an F-14 Tomcat.

Task 3 performance. “Sally” [pseudonym] was assigned to research the Mi-24,