Goals for Driver Education
This series of articles has been focusing on the Goals for Driver Education (GDE), in that I started with an overview and then showed how the GDE links with the Theory of Planned Behaviour and how, in fact, the GDE is simply a summary of what needs to be addressed during driver training in order to produce safe and responsible drivers.
It is important to recognise the difference between teaching the GDE framework and addressing it. Teaching the GDE framework would involve handing a copy of the framework to your pupils and discussing how they fit in and where they consider themselves to be in terms of their driver training. For the vast majority of learner drivers this is irrelevant. It will do nothing to accelerate their learning, raise their awareness, increase their self-responsibility, develop their self-evaluation skills or keep them safer on the roads once they have passed their test. The GDE framework does not represent a stepped approach to driver training, whereby the learner starts off firmly in level 1 and then graduates sequentially through levels 2, 3 and 4. Rather it demonstrates how the higher levels impact on the lower levels. How we control the car (Level 1) and drive in traffic (Level 2) is a direct result of the motive for the journey (Level 3) and our personality (Level 4). Equally, the degree to which we are able to self-evaluate (Column 3) will directly affect the control we have over the vehicle (Level 1), or how we interact with other road users (Level 2), or the choices we make about the journey (Level 3), and the degree of responsibility and control we have over our own lives – and, therefore, the driving task (Level 4).
Attempting to teach the GDE framework flies 100% in the face of client-centred learning. How many of you have got to grips with the DVSA National Standards? How many of you claim to fully understand the difference between each of the three main Standards? Do you know that there is a National Driver and Rider Training Standard, which sets out the standards required for Role 6, and is all about what is involved in the role of a driving instructor. Do you know that there is a separate standard for developing driving competence (post-test) and a further separate standard to develop safe and responsible driving (Cat B)? Do you know that there is a syllabus that sits alongside this latter standard and is available for all of us to use to inform a structure and content for our driver training? Does it affect your ability to run your own business, deliver driver training, generate recommendations and be successful in your chosen career if you are not totally familiar with the DVSA National Standards that underpin everything you do? No, I am certain it does not. It is not necessary to know all the details in the Standards in order to do a great job of teaching people safe driving for life. Similarly, it is not necessary to know inside out the GDE matrix in order to do the same great job. With a client-centred approach to how people learn and a reasonable understanding of how coaching raises awareness and builds responsibility you will naturally be addressing the higher levels of the GDE matrix and developing self-evaluation skills in your customers. Your pupils will not become safer drivers because you have given them a handout of the GDE matrix to take home and study. Nor will they become safer drivers if you gave them a copy of the DVSA Safe and Responsible Driving Syllabus.
So, if we aren’t going to teach the GDE matrix what are we going to do with it? We need to address it. This means, for example (and not exclusively), creating scenarios for discussion that develop the pupil’s ability to self-evaluate and consider what their responsibility will be when they are driving on their own. If you think about it, most people learn to drive in an environment totally divorced from reality. What has sitting next to a driving instructor for an hour or two a week got to do with the real world. If I were a learner driver I would find this a very weird situation and I would have huge difficulty in understanding how this experience would in any way equip me when it came to driving on my own once I’d passed my driving test. In fact, I wouldn’t consider it at all. I would be totally focused on passing my driving test and desperately hoping that I would never have to go through such an ordeal again. Passing my driving test would be like entering into a new world – one that I hadn’t been a part of before and one that was suddenly and unexpectedly challenging and hostile. What would my first experience be like when I was out driving on my own? How would I cope? How will I feel when I am driving with my friends and will that be different from when I am driving with my family or on my own? Will I be able to navigate? What if I make mistakes or get lost – will I know what to do? What if my car breaks down or I have a puncture? If we, as driving instructors, only work on getting our pupils through their driving test, we are only addressing the lower levels of the GDE. If we encourage them to think about any of the above questions and situations we will be addressing the higher levels of the GDE.
In my first article in this series of the GDE I showed this version of the matrix populated with my own questions:
It is important to recognise the difference between teaching the GDE framework and addressing it. Teaching the GDE framework would involve handing a copy of the framework to your pupils and discussing how they fit in and where they consider themselves to be in terms of their driver training. For the vast majority of learner drivers this is irrelevant. It will do nothing to accelerate their learning, raise their awareness, increase their self-responsibility, develop their self-evaluation skills or keep them safer on the roads once they have passed their test. The GDE framework does not represent a stepped approach to driver training, whereby the learner starts off firmly in level 1 and then graduates sequentially through levels 2, 3 and 4. Rather it demonstrates how the higher levels impact on the lower levels. How we control the car (Level 1) and drive in traffic (Level 2) is a direct result of the motive for the journey (Level 3) and our personality (Level 4). Equally, the degree to which we are able to self-evaluate (Column 3) will directly affect the control we have over the vehicle (Level 1), or how we interact with other road users (Level 2), or the choices we make about the journey (Level 3), and the degree of responsibility and control we have over our own lives – and, therefore, the driving task (Level 4).
Attempting to teach the GDE framework flies 100% in the face of client-centred learning. How many of you have got to grips with the DVSA National Standards? How many of you claim to fully understand the difference between each of the three main Standards? Do you know that there is a National Driver and Rider Training Standard, which sets out the standards required for Role 6, and is all about what is involved in the role of a driving instructor. Do you know that there is a separate standard for developing driving competence (post-test) and a further separate standard to develop safe and responsible driving (Cat B)? Do you know that there is a syllabus that sits alongside this latter standard and is available for all of us to use to inform a structure and content for our driver training? Does it affect your ability to run your own business, deliver driver training, generate recommendations and be successful in your chosen career if you are not totally familiar with the DVSA National Standards that underpin everything you do? No, I am certain it does not. It is not necessary to know all the details in the Standards in order to do a great job of teaching people safe driving for life. Similarly, it is not necessary to know inside out the GDE matrix in order to do the same great job. With a client-centred approach to how people learn and a reasonable understanding of how coaching raises awareness and builds responsibility you will naturally be addressing the higher levels of the GDE matrix and developing self-evaluation skills in your customers. Your pupils will not become safer drivers because you have given them a handout of the GDE matrix to take home and study. Nor will they become safer drivers if you gave them a copy of the DVSA Safe and Responsible Driving Syllabus.
So, if we aren’t going to teach the GDE matrix what are we going to do with it? We need to address it. This means, for example (and not exclusively), creating scenarios for discussion that develop the pupil’s ability to self-evaluate and consider what their responsibility will be when they are driving on their own. If you think about it, most people learn to drive in an environment totally divorced from reality. What has sitting next to a driving instructor for an hour or two a week got to do with the real world. If I were a learner driver I would find this a very weird situation and I would have huge difficulty in understanding how this experience would in any way equip me when it came to driving on my own once I’d passed my driving test. In fact, I wouldn’t consider it at all. I would be totally focused on passing my driving test and desperately hoping that I would never have to go through such an ordeal again. Passing my driving test would be like entering into a new world – one that I hadn’t been a part of before and one that was suddenly and unexpectedly challenging and hostile. What would my first experience be like when I was out driving on my own? How would I cope? How will I feel when I am driving with my friends and will that be different from when I am driving with my family or on my own? Will I be able to navigate? What if I make mistakes or get lost – will I know what to do? What if my car breaks down or I have a puncture? If we, as driving instructors, only work on getting our pupils through their driving test, we are only addressing the lower levels of the GDE. If we encourage them to think about any of the above questions and situations we will be addressing the higher levels of the GDE.
In my first article in this series of the GDE I showed this version of the matrix populated with my own questions:
The seventeen competences that make the new Standards Check
enable us to address the higher levels of the GDE through coaching or
client-centred learning. Take goal setting, for example. When you ask your
pupil what they would like to get out of today, you are addressing Level 4 of
the GDE. Level 4 is all about the goals, ambitions and dreams someone has in
life and also the resources that they have to achieve these things. Developing
someone’s ability to focus on what they want to achieve in an hour or two on a
driving lesson helps them be in control of their own learning. Done regularly,
this helps them recognise the power of goal-setting and the rewards it will
bring in their daily lives. Determining what you want or need and putting plans
in place to go out there and get it, taking into consideration who you are and
how you think and how you feel, helps you become self-determining and
ultimately self-fulfilled – oh, and, by the way, a safer driver.
When you ask your pupil how they would like to learn something today you are addressing the higher levels of the GDE because, in order to answer, they have to think about their needs and wants. When you gain feedback from your pupil on their performance throughout the lesson or encourage them to reflect at the end of the lesson you are addressing column three of the GDE because you are developing their self-evaluation skills.
The message in this article is really about recognising that it is not necessary to tell your pupil all about the GDE framework. It is, however, crucial that you are addressing the whole of the framework and, therefore, all the goals for driver education in your driver training.
When you ask your pupil how they would like to learn something today you are addressing the higher levels of the GDE because, in order to answer, they have to think about their needs and wants. When you gain feedback from your pupil on their performance throughout the lesson or encourage them to reflect at the end of the lesson you are addressing column three of the GDE because you are developing their self-evaluation skills.
The message in this article is really about recognising that it is not necessary to tell your pupil all about the GDE framework. It is, however, crucial that you are addressing the whole of the framework and, therefore, all the goals for driver education in your driver training.
