Studies & Analysis
ASTA engages clients to create information, insight, options, and solutions through high-quality, objective, and data-driven methods to improve program outcomes.
ASTA offers study and analysis services in a broad array of business and organizational areas. ASTA partners with each client to design a technical approach to meet each client’s needs. We do this by employing valid and reliable data collection and analysis methodologies to identify effective practices that can be leveraged to achieve program goals.
ASTA thoughtfully forms an interdisciplinary team of associates with the proper breadth and depth of expertise and related experience to conduct each study and analysis. This combination of personnel, with the required knowledge, is designed to meet the specific requirements of the client and to successfully generate findings that are explicit, practical, and useful. The team members can offer expertise in a wide-range of relevant fields, such as education, sociology, psychology, health, information technology, business, and training. They also have extensive experience in writing and edit research reports for other organizations.
Our approach to conducting studies and analysis focuses on five critical elements that ensures our work is thoughtful and oriented to our client’s needs.
- Collaboration – We work in partnership with each client to identify the questions and issues most relevant to the problems they are facing.
- Expertise – We offer extensive know-how in the design and execution of applied research and evaluation applicable across a broad range of content areas.
- Focused Plan – Each study team has a carefully devised strategy to achieve all data collection and analysis actions.
- Thorough Examination – ASTA’s interdisciplinary approach provides an attentive, focused, and wide perspective in analyzing, interpreting, and understanding study findings.
- Practical and Focused Recommendations – Our customer-centric collaborative approach ensures the study recommendations are realistic and linked to the requirements while taking into consideration all constraints, and solution sets.
ASTA’s studies and analysis work has most recently focused on the emergence of new technologies and how they may afford opportunities to improve training efficacy. This emphasis has resulted in the development of a company proprietary technology allocation model (ATAM). The ATAM was developed using current research in human performance and training, established training best practices, and consideration of emerging training technologies. It provides a systematic and transparent system for allocating instructional media and technologies to training requirements.
ATAM employs an algorithm-based coherent process that uses task characteristic data (among other data) to identify training requirements and define the appropriate training technology to meet those requirements. Technology affordances — rather than specific training media — are built into the model to support cross-platform and cross-service applications.
ATAM provides the following benefits when used as part of the study and analysis of training requirements and the identification of training technologies:
- Systematic – Applies consistent selection criteria in the technology identification process.
- Transparent – Provides traceability and visibility into validation of the selection process.
- Adaptable – Incorporates flexible algorithms and decision trees.
Experience
ASTA has considerable experience conducting independent studies such as Training System Requirements Analysis (TSRA) and Front End Analyses (FEA) to support emerging training requirements for the Department of Defense including the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).
ASTA has conducted these types of studies in support of a large engineering and technical support company as part of their Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA) contract. We have demonstrated experience identifying training requirements for:
- Fixed-wing aircraft
- Rotary-wing aircraft
- Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS)
- Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC)
Our USSOCOM-related work has, in particular, examined how new and emerging technologies can be leveraged to improve training efficacy. This work led to the development and refinement of our technology allocation model (ATAM) – a model that is easily tailorable to address changing training requirements and emerging technology. ATAM is ready to be applied as part of a study to meet each client’s specific needs.
Our studies and analysis associates have also been commissioned to write and edit research reports on the behalf of other organizations. Samples of publicly available reports that were researched and written and/or edited by ASTA’s associates can be found on the internet.
- A summary evaluation of ASTA’s cyber-learning project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) - [Read it]
- The series of Training 2015 reports, commissioned by the National Training and Simulation Association (NTSA) - [Read it]
- A report on the Modeling and Simulation industry, commissioned by NTSA - [Read it]
- A report on ATAM development, Transforming Training Requirements Analysis: A New Model, presented at The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference 2010 (I/ITSEC) - [Read it]
