Developing a learning hierarchy for identifying pre-requisites to training goals in vocational education

From the perspective of cognitivism, any complex learning task can be broken down into its supporting components which when acquired will lead to the learning of the complex task. Failure to identify the supporting components will lead to non-achievement of the intended learning goal. The procedural task analysis and the learning task analysis technique are techniques that can be used to analyse learning or training demand which would lead to a better understanding of prerequisites to an intended learning/training goal. This paper provides an example of how procedural task analysis and the learning task analysis techniques can be used to identify the pre-requisites to a learning goal for a vocational skill training course in mechanical engineering.