Examine the Impact of Training Duration on Retention

The purpose of this report is to provide Special Operations Forces SOF language program administrators with evidence-based conclusions and recommendations pertaining to how initial acquisition training IAT duration impacts SOF operators ability to retain their language capability, specifically after formal training has been completed. Three sources of information were synthesized in this report 1 the current literature, 2 a meta-analytic review, and 3 an original empirical study investigating the relationship between IAT duration and skill-level retention in the SOF language training environment. Despite gaps in the empirical literature on this topic, results from the primary SOF study indicate that IAT duration has an impact on SOF operators initial proficiency however, this impact lessens over time for both Category III and Category IIIIV languages. Recommendations include further research on the relationship between initial training duration and skill-level retention, and a possible reduction in IAT length for Category III and Category IIIIV languages based on the end-goal of IAT.