Research Report—Skill Loss, Part II:: An Experiment with Engineering Apprentices

Abstract

In the first of our two articles on skill loss we concentrated on two kinds of investigation, surveys of the opinions of experienced individuals and controlled, but often highly artificial, experiments. In this the second article we shall describe the results of some studies using the “natural experiment” technique. Carrying out a natural experiment is rather like studying an eclipse or an earthquake. There is nothing the scientist can do about arranging the events, as is the rule in the classic laboratory experiment; one simply takes things as they come but hopefully with telescopes, seismographs or whatever appropriate measuring devices suitably deployed to record the events for subsequent analysis.

Citation

Annett, J. and Wilson, J. (1982), "Research Report—Skill Loss, Part II:: An Experiment with Engineering Apprentices", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 3-7. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb002382