Student Performance Rating Scale

How The SPRS Works

Feedback is one of the most critical components of any training program. Without clear, objective, actionable feedback from their instructors a student can only ever hope to be as good as they can make themselves. As an instructor, and more importantly a large training company, employing a strong, effective, and consistent feedback process for student performance evaluations must remain a top priority. The Modern Warrior Project’s continued efforts to improve the quality of training across the entire industry while providing credible standards resulted in the creation of the Student Performance Rating Scale (SPRS). The SPRS has been deliberately designed to eliminate the guesswork for both instructors and students so every training iteration translates into usable feedback.

Some of the key benefits of the Student Performance Rating Scale include:

• For Students
  • Simplified ratings provide clear feedback for quicker improvement
  • Ratings are based on carefully selected, relevant criteria so feedback is more meaningful
  • Ratings are objective and impersonal so students are more receptive to constructive critiques and less defensive when receiving feedback
  • Provides students with a better expectation of how they will be evaluated so they concentrate more on learning and worry less about being tested
• For Instructors
  • SPRS can be used to evaluate any skills (shooting, first aid, survival, etc.) so the process is the same regardless of the course content
  • The 3-number scale is easy to use and understand so feedback is significantly more consistent from course to course, student to student, and across large instructional teams/companies
  • Rating criteria assist instructors in focusing on key elements of student performance during evaluations so they are more likely to identify important issues
  • A formalized feedback rating process means quicker train-ups for new instructors since the system is straightforward and easily adopted
• For Both
  • SPRS seamlessly integrates Errors, Performance Metrics, Situational Awareness, and basic Proficiency Levels into a single Rating, significantly reducing miscommunications and misunderstandings often experienced during dynamic skills based evaluations
  • Ratings carry over for students working with any organizations that use the SPRS, so students and instructors already speak a common language even when training together for the first time

A Simple 1-2-3 Scale

The SPRS is built on the proven 1-2-3 scale used by many of the military programs of instruction our team has attended and/or run. The primary difference is that the MWP has expanded and further defined the meaning of each number to deliver more useful information to students than the traditional “Needs Improvement – Good Enough – Great” approach. This transition came when our Director of Training attended a two-week course at the US Navy Test Pilot School and subsequently revisited the    1-2-3 system. After careful review, and based in part on the 1969 Cooper Harper model used by NASA to evaluate performance, the MWP established the Student Performance Rating Scale and adopted it as the standard for all student training and instructor development reviews.

With the SPRS instructors can quickly communicate incredibly valuable feedback in the form of a single number (1-2-3), or if they choose, a single number/letter combination (1A/B – 2A/B – 3A/B/C) for greater insight.