Misconceptions

This blog from Tom Ingram (Owner of BIG TOM Driving School) identifies one of the major obstacles to an effective learning experience that can affect some learner drivers, miconceptions.

The attitudes and beliefs of our learner pupils are the lifeblood of potential misconceptions; it is unwise to make generalisations about all pupils as their thoughts and feelings are pretty unique to them.  However, there are a couple of particular misconceptions that I have repeatedly seen over the years and it can really affect the motivation of pupils.

The first misconception can be created by ignoring the fact that previous experience can have a significant effect on how long it will take a pupil to learn to drive. “Experience” in this context is wide and varied.  The most obvious examples include how much experience a pupil has of operating any movable object: petrol kart, scooter, car, van, tractor, cycle, motorbike etc.  This experience will have introduced the pupil to the concepts of multi-tasking with hands/feet/eyes but also may have provided them with some form of “road sense”: spatial awareness when passing parked vehicles, understanding when they have to give way to others, developing a sense of perceived danger, assessing how events are likely to occur in traffic situations.  However, “experience” can also include how much the pupil is practised in effective learning.  A pupil who has not experienced a meaningful learning environment that literally assists him/her in learning, can be troublesome.  It may not be obvious to all pupils the difference in outcomes of failing to effectively learn for an English essay, as opposed to safe driving on public roads. 

The other misconception that has repeatedly cropped up in the past is related to the pupil’s perception of the end goal.  This one is equally as tricky to deal with because as with the previous, it is linked to attitudes and beliefs and sometimes we simply do not know what we do not know.  Pupils can be ‘driving test’ oriented in their goal setting, and in such a strong manner, it actually obstructs their ability to learn how to drive.  They speak to friends and family and are bombarded with a range of opinion which can be entirely misleading and potentially very confusing.  One classic example of this is where the parents of a pupil are saying to their son/daughter how they should not be concerned about failing the driving test “It is not the end of the world”.  This advice might on the face of it seem sound, reasonable and balanced.  But for the ears of a particular kind of pupil, these words are deadly.  For a nervous, anxious and unconfident pupil to keep hearing these words of advice from parents will have profound effects on outcomes.  Firstly, the message can be construed as preparing the pupil for failure, “Don’t worry, we can sense you are not confident, and we want you to know that we also are expecting you to fail…. and that is fine with us.  You fail, it is absolutely fine”.  Secondly it is depriving the pupil of the right to own their learning experience.  The message sets the parameters of the learning (the driving test), and it is excusing the pupil of not ensuring they are properly ready to take the driving test when they feel they are ready.  Rather than the pupil attempting to consider if they feel that they are safe and confident to drive on any roads, in any weather, in the dark or in the daytime, instead the parent(s) has focussed the mind of the pupil on the driving test only, with an indirect message of “Come on, crack on, get yourself to test, don’t worry yourself if you fail”.

The first one is tricky because driving instructors when presented with this kind of pupil need to raise the awareness of the pupil of the task in hand.  The DVSA Driving Standard is very good on this theme.  It is all about attempting to explain to a person all the different aspects that learning to drive involves, in order for them to see the size of the mountain they have in front of them.  Some pupils enter into the experience thinking they are going for a 15 minute stroll up a hill, with no concept of the personal attributes required in the journey ahead…. planning, perseverance, co-ordination, goal setting, self-awareness, responsibility.

The second one is tricky for a driving instructor, because these beliefs will be deeply felt and will be all the more “concreted” in to the heart with the constant reinforcement of friends and family.  What should be added is that the people who make these kinds of remarks do not do so with any malice or ill-feeling; these kinds of opinions roll off the tongue with sometimes very little conscious thought for how they may be perceived.  Even when parents and grand-parents do give thought to what they are saying, they are not necessarily aware of the consequences of how these opinions are being interpreted.  What might seem blindingly good advice to one person, does NOT in itself mean it will assist the next person….. not by a long way.

To summarise.  As a PDI, you are about to enter an industry where the time you spend with your pupils needs to be “positive time”.  Dealing with misconceptions IS “positive time”.  At my driving school, we work tirelessly withour customers at the front end of our training, before a single penny has been exchanged, attempting to deal with ANY potential obstructions to learning, and these 2 misconceptions are right up there.  By the way, if you ignore these beliefs held by some pupils, you really are not much more than a parent/grandparent/friend giving the pupil some mediocre driving lessons about the robotic driving actions involved in learning to drive.  It is not smart, it is directly against the guidelines set out in the DVSA Driving Standard, and it is unprofessional.  

Do not allow yourself to fall in to the “compliance” driving instruction mode, whereby you recognise that your pupil is struggling to progress, so therefore you just tell them what to do.  They will do it for a while, but as this lass demonstrates quite effectively, 8 months after passing the test and she is switching lanes in dual-carraigeways with no observations before steering.

Tom Ingram provides PAYG driving training for trainee driving instructors 0775 607 1464