Personnel Qualification Standards (PQS) and Measurable Standards

Following several recent tragic, embarrassing, and wholly preventable accidents, the Navy has taken many positive and encouraging steps to improve the quality of training that sailors need, and deserve, to ensure our ships remain in strong, capable hands. Last spring, I attended a workshop at the Surface Warfare Officer School (SWOS) focused on improvements to the Navigation, Seamanship, and Shiphandling Training (NSST) and came away from it encouraged that the Navy’s leadership laser-focused on improving training quality. I was equally encouraged by the quality and passion of discussion led by the “Sailors in the weeds”—those Sailors who took a couple of weeks out of their busy shipboard schedules and attended this workshop because they felt it important enough to have their voices heard. These Sailors want to do the right things. And they want to be trained the right way. By the right people. In the right environment. Between the forthcoming improvements in the NSST curriculum, the improvements recently (or soon-to-be) promulgated in apprentice, journeyman, and master-level navigation training, and improvements in basic and advanced division officer training, it appears that theNavy is finally wrapping its collective head around training as a path, rather than an end-state.

With all of that said, I feel that the Navy is still falling short in shipboard qualifications with a general lack of MEASURABLE standards in the Personnel Qualification Standards (PQS) program. In fairness, I feel that the PQS program more than adequately addresses specific areas of knowledge and skills that need to be assessed, but the question needs to be asked: What is the standard?

Generally speaking, the 300-level tasks (final qualification) of the PQS contains the following rubric (modified accordingly for each line item and watch station):

This is a classic example of demonstrating *knowledge* of a task, followed by *performance*of a task. Taking a deeper dive into it, however, shows that the only metric assigned to task-performance is that it be completed “satisfactorily”. What does that MEAN? And to whom? How can one MEASURE that? Quite obviously, 10 different people will give you 10 different answers.

Philosophically, the tasks required by the PQS can, and should, be treated as learning objectives (LO’s), which are categorized as either knowledge- or skill-based. In either case, LO’s are made up of three elements:

1. Condition. The circumstances under which the behavior will be performed. You will select these circumstances to clarify the manner in which the behavior in the schoolhouse will be performed.

2. Behavior. What the trainee is expected to do (performance) after training.

3. Standard. How well the trainee is expected to do the behavior. Reflects the quantity and/or quality of trainee performance.

Note: The above is stated from NAVEDTRA 130B (Task-Based Curriculum Development – Developer’s Guide), Chapter 4. While the PQS is not, by definition, curriculum, the principles of assessing task-performance apply. As such, I am of the opinion that the principles of LO development should apply equally.

Prior to 2010, a typical ship control and navigation PQS task looked like this:

(TASK) – Establish and plot ship’s position using radar ranges and bearings: (3 times) A B C D E[See above rubric]

Note that the only skill-metric was to “Satisfactorily perform this task”. Again, what does that MEAN, and to whom? HOW is it MEASURED?

In 2008, a two-year effort was undertaken to revise and implement a new Ship Control and Navigation PQS (NAVEDTRA 43492-2 series), employing these principles of assessment. An example of one of the tasks looked like this:

Performance Condition: On a ship underway, in a full-mission ship simulator or in a navigation laboratory using a properly tuned radar or radar simulator:

Performance Behavior: Determine and plot three or more radar bearings and ranges from identified charted objects or points of land.

1. Ranges were correctly determined, with observations of objects ahead or astern made first.

2. Bearings were correctly determined with observation of objects abeam, or nearly abeam made first.

3. Plotted position was within (25 yards coastal/harbor) (0.1nm open ocean) of evaluator’s plotted position.

While it still wasn’t perfect, the new task assigned MEASURABLE standards of completion that were applied GLOBALLY, and not just to one particular assessor’s subjective opinion. The new revision had the added benefit of being more closely inline with the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) (Whaaaaaat??? What madness is THIS?!?). I can’t speak to the STCW (however briefly) without including one of their examples:

PERFORMANCE CONDITION: Using a marine radar or a radar simulator that meets applicable national and international performance standards, with land and navigational aids

displayed, and given a chart with a scale of no more than 1:150,000,

PERFORMANCE BEHAVIOR: The candidate determines two or more ranges measured from identified charted objects or points of land and plots them.

PERFORMANCE STANDARD: The candidate’s position is within ± 0.10 nm of the assessor’s position.

The parallels between the STCW and the 2010 revision of the Ship Control and Navigation PQS should be obvious – where applicable, the relevant tasks were simply cut and pasted from one document to the other.

Now, fast forward to 2018. A major revision to the ship control and navigation PQS recently was released, incorporating recommended changes from the recent “Comprehensive Review of Surface Force Incidents” (additions of watch stations, equipment, skill-sets, etc). The newly-released PQS looks something like this:

(TASK) – Establish and plot ship’s position using radar ranges and bearings: (3 times) A B C D E [See above rubric]

If you’ve managed to stay awake to this point in my verbal-diarrhea, I’ll summarize: We’ve gone from a PQS with NO measurable standard to a PQS that contained measurable standards, and now we’re back to a PQS with NO MEASURABLE STANDARDS. WHY? If someone has an answer to that, I’m all ears…it makes no logical sense to me.

The benefits of having measurable standards are quite obvious, given a few seconds of critical thought.

From the IMO perspective, I, as a (hypothetical) master of an American-flagged container ship, KNOW what standard my newly-reporting, Indonesian-trained second mate has been trained to. The STCW is a GLOBAL standard for that very reason, and with those measurable standards comes reasonable expectations of performance.

In today’s Navy, I’ve seen it many times (on Facebook, of all places!): ship’s routinely ask others for help, either requesting additional bodies to support their own underway watchbill, or offering bodies of their own to other ships for the same purpose. As a (again, hypothetical) QMC, I have a reasonable expectation that my Temp is QUALIFIED. The great unknown becomes “Qualified to WHAT standard? Qualified to WHO’s standard?

While I probably don’t need to go there, I will: The USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) accident underscores my point. The (TAD) watchstanders were QUALIFIED, but clearly not to a standard that the situation required. Why not? To me the question is rhetorical, as the answer is obvious.

Where the Navy is : “Ask ten different people, get ten different answers.” The current PQS reflects that. Where the Navy NEEDS to be: “Ask ten different people, get ONE answer.” The Navy was there at one point. Why did it go back?