Commercial & Business Aviation
2.1.1 Phases
The development and implementation of an AQP is a five-phase process. This process provides a structured building-block approach to program development. It results in a program with fully documented curricula, supporting rationale and development methodology. The use of this standardized AQP development process, along with its documentation requirements, allows an AQP applicant to develop a training and evaluation program based on analyzed and justifiable requirements. The documentation from this five-phase process will then serve as the regulatory basis for promulgating the AQP-developed training and evaluation programs.
Each phase is authorized sequentially and consists of specific activities and includes the documentation of those activities. These documents must be submitted to Transport Canada for approval. An applicant cannot exercise any training and evaluation provisions permitted in Phases III, IV, or V until it has met all requirements of the preceding phases to the satisfaction of Transport Canada. See figure 2-1 for the AQP Development Process.
Fig 2-1: AQP Development Process
2.1.2 Instructional System Development (ISD)
The use of a systematic curriculum development methodology known as ISD has been incorporated into the AQP process. Applicants may employ any of a wide range of current ISD models. Alternatively, they may customize their own approach to curriculum development. This chapter provides one acceptable methodology, but applicants are encouraged to be creative in tailoring their own ISD approach to their requirements, subject to Transport Canada approval. Innovation and practical application may result in an equally acceptable AQP.
Because some ISD models are far more complex than others, Transport Canada has found it useful to define its minimal ISD requirements. These are listed below:
- Develop a job task listing.
- Analyze the job task listing to determine essential skill and knowledge requirements (either directly or by reference).
- Determine which skill and knowledge requirements must be trained/tested.
- Develop Proficiency Objectives that capture all training requirements.
- Develop Qualification Standards that define acceptable operational performance levels.
- Develop tests that measure proficiency in skill and knowledge areas.
- Provide instructional programs that teach and test training requirements.
- Establish and maintain an audit trail of explicit links between task requirements, training requirements, training and evaluation activities, and evaluation results.
- Measure student performance against proficiency objectives and Qualification Standards for all curricula.
- Revise the training program based on student performance levels on an ongoing basis. This de-identified data (stored in the PPDB) will be collected and reported to Transport Canada on a regular basis.
2.1.3 Training Systems
While all applicants must meet the minimum requirements of the ISD approach, the amount of effort each applicant should put into each step of their training analysis and development depends on a number of factors. Applicants may use the ISD process to build complete training systems from the ground up, to build a proficiency-based quality control shell around an existing training system, or to make minor modifications to existing proficiency-based curricula. Building a training system from the ground up for a new aircraft will require far more depth of analysis and development than merely modifying a current curriculum for an existing aircraft.