Developemnt of Operator Training Curricula Using the Instructional Systems Development Approach

The training of power system operators has always been important because of their crucial decision making role in operating the system safely and economically. The increasing complexity of the power network, the sophistication of the computerized control centers, and the operation of the system closer to its limits, have focussed attention on the effectiveness of this training. It has become obvious that the training curriculum must be carefully designed to meet all the objectives of trainee performance. In this paper, a step-by-step method to develop training curricula using the instructional systems development approach is presented. This approach, developed principally in the U.S. Department of Defense, has been successfully used by NASA, the airlines and other industrial sectors. The experience in using this method to develop a training curriculum for the Arizona Public Service Co. is described.