Foundations of the After Action Review Process

The U.S. Army has adopted the After Action Review AAR as its primary method of providing feedback after unit collective training exercises. The AAR is an interactive discussion in which unit members decide what happened, why it happened, and how to improve or sustain collective performance in future exercises. other services and organizations outside the military are also beginning to employ the AAR as a feedback tool. This report describes the twenty-five year history of AAR research and development and the major behavioral research areas contributing to AAR development and refinement. In addition, this report defines goals for future AAR research.