The Ultimate Guide to
The Standards Check
8.
Intervention
1
SmartDriving
The Ultimate Guide to
The Standards Check
Intervention
Introduction
3
8. Intervention
The fourth item on the examiner’s form, in section two of the assessment
criteria (Risk Management), deals with intervention by the instructor.
The DVSA wording for this assessment item is:
“Was any verbal or physical intervention by the trainer timely and
appropriate?”
The DVSA guidance for examiners states:
“Clearly the most important ‘interventions’ are those that manage risk in
a moving car. We would expect an ADI to point out situations in which
a risk or hazard might arise to their pupil. However direct intervention by
the ADI, to prevent a situation escalating, may be needed. This criterion
is primarily about the ADI’s response in those situations.”
In this chapter I consider
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How much you should intervene?
Verbal intervention
Physical intervention
Unwitting intervention
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The Ultimate Guide to
The Standards Check
Intervention
How Much Do You Intervene?
8. Intervention
5
How much should you intervene?
The DVSA encourage instructors to take a client-centred approach to
their teaching but recognise that there is a fine balance between offering
enough support and giving too much.
The degree of ‘intervention’ input that you have can have a major effect
progress and motivation; too much and the learner can become reliant on
you – too little and there could be a lot of scary moments!
It might be worth thinking of intervention as ‘the interruption of a planned
process’. By ‘planned process’ I mean any agreement about what should
happen and how it should happen (see ‘Job Sharing’ in Chapter 5).
Sometimes it will be necessary to interrupt the learner with a statement,
question or action, but other times interruption will have a negative effect
on the learning process.
You will perhaps agree that the primary ‘job’ of a driving instructor is to help
people to become self-reliant drivers who are able to take full responsibility
for their own actions – the degree to which you intervene will have a major
effect on how quickly, or how much, this happens.
The key word here is responsibility – to be responsible an individual needs
to have the skill of self-evaluation and must be able to understand the
‘choice-action-consequence’ equation.
Responsibility and self-reliance, like everything else, improve with practise
– the more that learners can do for themselves, without interruption, the
more responsible and self-reliant they will become.
The DVSA say:
“In the moving-car environment an ADI remaining silent and signalling
their confidence in the pupil, through their body language, is just as
much a coaching input as asking a stream of questions.”
In other words – don’t interrupt when things are going well! Allow the
learner to ‘be responsible’ and to get on with the driving.
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8. Intervention
6
Motivation
The more that your customers are able to take responsibility (as opposed
to being reliant on you), the better motivated they will become; they will
see their goal of being an independent, qualified driver growing nearer.
Every time you have to intervene or interrupt with negative input the learner’s
development of self-reliance is slowed.
Intervention by an instructor can lead to a learner feeling that he/she has
had ‘the rug pulled from under their feet’; this feeling can zap motivation
quicker than almost anything else for most people.
Verbal intervention such as ‘Stop!’, ‘Look out!’, ‘Don’t pull out!’ etc., can
quickly undermine confidence and motivation.
Physical intervention such as using dual-controls or grabbing the steering
wheel to avert danger will keep the car safe, but it will instantly zap
confidence and motivation in most people. Having control snatched away
can lead to a feeling of inadequacy.
Of course, if a dangerous situation arises you must intervene swiftly and
positively, but remember that negative intervention can carry a cost in
terms of damaged motivation.
Reading the earlier chapters of this guide, you will have recognised that
route planning/selection lies at the heart of many training issues. If you
have to intervene verbally more than once or twice a week to keep the car
safe, or physically more than once or twice a month, perhaps a look at
your route selection might be a useful exercise.
Ultimately you should intervene as little as possible – but as
much as necessary to keep the car safe and promote learning.
Positive inervention (feedback, praise, etc.) can be useful and valuable, but
make sure that it does not distract, especially when the car is moving.
© SmartDriving 2015
The Ultimate Guide to
The Standards Check
Intervention
Verbal Intervention
8. Intervention
8
Verbal intervention
As discussed in Chapter 5, there should be a plan outlining the degree of
responsibility that the learner will take at any given time. In some situations
you might share responsibility by giving prompts or asking questions as
the car is moving, these things are not verbal interventions (or interruptions)
as such. They only become interventions when they go beyond what has
been agreed.
Sometimes verbal intervention is absolutely necessary to prevent danger.
Not only is verbal intervention sometimes necessary, it is almost always
preferable to physical intervention – this is because an early verbal
intervention will (potentially) do less motivational damage than a physical
intervention.
Unnecessary verbal intervention can disrupt the flow of a learner’s thinking
and actions.
A classic example of this can be found during many ADI Part-Three
examinations where students have it in their minds that they must ask
questions during phase-two of the exam. The examiner starts off by driving
perfectly well but is then interrupted so much by unnecessary questions
that he/she makes mistakes as a direct result. The same thing can, and
does, happen with learners.
Questions on the move can be very valuable – but they can also be very
disruptive and break concentration.
‘Over-instruction’ could also be construed as unnecessary verbal
intervention as it hampers the development of self-reliance. If a learner is
coping with a situation allow him/her to get on with it!
Each time you are tempted to intervene verbally ask yourself whether you
will be assisting the learning or interrupting the flow.
Sometimes your verbal intervention will be necessary to prevent a learner
from struggling and getting ‘out of their depth’ with a situation that they
are clearly not coping with. In this instance you would need to ‘rescue’ the
learner by intervening but then re-plan the lesson to allow for the situation.
© SmartDriving 2015
The Ultimate Guide to
The Standards Check
Intervention
Physical Intervention
8. Intervention
10
Physical intervention
On the old check-test marking form the examiner marked ‘instructors use
of controls’ when assessing physical intervention.
Because of the nature of your working environment it’s inevitable that use
of dual-controls will sometimes be required to keep the car safe. To this
end, something I wrote (a long time ago) about physical intervention with
dual-controls was quoted recently by a speaker at an ADI conference:
“Dual-controls have one primary purpose; to prevent the leakage of
blood and the displacement of vital organs”
During the course of your career there might be times when this need to
‘prevent the leakage of blood’ is because of a lapse of concentration on
your part – but hopefully, not very often!
Impressive use of the dual-controls to avert danger will not score points
during the Standards Check if the examiner feels that the danger should
not have arisen in the first place.
The same thing goes for grabbing the steering wheel or handbrake. The
need for this sort of intervention should be very rare in a well-planned
lesson.
Of course, not all physical intervention is ‘violent’ – it might simply be
that an instructor operates the heating/de-mist controls, wipers or lights;
maybe he/she might activate or cancel an indicator signal. But there are
instructors who habitually operate some of the controls.
Operating the controls – other than for demonstration purposes – is not
your job! You are not driving the car!
Standards Check Examiner
When assessing physical intervention your Standards Check examiner will
first consider whether the intervention was necessary.
Operating anciliary controls, for example, should almost never be necessary
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8. Intervention
11
– if the learner can’t cope with the burden of driving and operating these
controls either the route is wrong or you have unwittingly facilitated a
‘mental overload’ situation.
Second, if the intervention was necessary, the examiner will consider the
timing – early, late or appropriate.
Discussion
All physical intervention needs to be discussed with the learner.
• Was the learner aware that you used the dual-controls or took other physical action?
• Does he/she understand what led up to a necessary intervention?
• What is the plan to avoid further intervention?
The primary reason for discussing reasons for intervention is to help the
learner to understand what was happening and thus minimise the need for
further action in the future.
During the Standards Check the conversation will have a secondary
purpose, it will help the examiner to understand the context of the situation
within the overall learning pattern of that particular learner.
© SmartDriving 2015
The Ultimate Guide to
The Standards Check
Intervention
Unwitting Intervention
8. Intervention
13
Unwitting intervention
During my in-car work, assessing and helping instructors over the years,
I have come across four instructors who were using the dual-footbrake
without realising that they were doing it. In each case they were experienced
instructors with several years teaching experience under their belts.
These instructors were genuinely unaware of the fact that they were braking
for the learner.
I suspect that the instance of instructors braking without realising that they
are doing so is not common, but I doubt whether I’ve come across the
only four instructors with this problem.
However, something that I have come across quite regularly is instructors
who keep their feet hovering over, or resting on, the dual pedals. I’ve even
come across ADI trainers who teach this ‘dodgy practice’. Do you ever find
yourself doing this? If you do, ask yourself what message you are sending
to your customers (they will notice even though they won’t mention it).
© SmartDriving 2015
The Ultimate Guide to
The Standards Check
Intervention
Action Point
8. Intervention
15
Taking action on this chapter
The degree to which you intervene (or interrupt), either appropriately or
inappropriately, can make or break the success of a lesson.
Over the next week focus on your interventions.
• Do your interventions always support learning and safety?
• Do you allow learners to ‘get on with it’ when they are coping well?
• Do you ‘rescue’ learners if they are struggling with no sign of finding their own solutions?
• Are your interventions ever a result of a lapse in your concentration?
• Do your interventions ever ‘zap’ motivation?
• On the whole, do you intervene, or interrupt?
© SmartDriving 2015