In this tutorial, I will explain how Competency-Based Training and Assessment, or CBTA, works in Private-Radar.

Competency-Based Training and Assessment in aviation is a method that emphasizes evaluating individuals based on their demonstrated abilities and assessing individuals' performance against defined standards. This is a common practice in airline simulator training.

Note: At Private-Radar, we based our CBTA evaluations on the ICAO Evidence Based Training (EBT).

Understanding CBTA in Private-Radar (0:37)

The first thing we need to do is look at courses. To create a CBTA course, go to the "Courses" section, select a course, and click on the pencil "Edit" icon.
Here, you'll find a switch to enable or disable the CBTA mode. Once this is enabled, two new tabs will appear: Phases and Competencies.

Phases are the individual parts of a flight: Take Off, Climb and Cruise for example. The phases can be configured according to your needs.

Competencies are pre-defined areas of knowledge and specific behaviors that are evaluated during the Phases of the flight. These competencies can be configured according to your needs.

In CBTA, lesson evaluation differs from traditional flight training. Instead of a "Minimum or Passing Grade," students are assessed against a "Standard Grade." This means they aren't required to meet a set passing grade but are evaluated on Behavioral Indicators for specific competencies, determining if they are above or below the standard.

In Private-Radar, the Standard Grade is automatically set at 3, on a 1 to 5 scale and if the student presents any deviation from the standard grade, the instructor will need to specify which Behavioral Indicator is above or below the standard.

BS=1, S-=2, S=3, S+=4, AS=5

NOTE: According to the International Civil Aviation Organization guidelines for Evidence-Based Training, if a student is below standard in one competency but above standard in another competency in the same exercise, the instructor will have to choose the most relevant outcome of the exercise, since you can only choose to grade the exercise with remarks on the competencies either above or below the standard, but not both at the same time.

Configuring the exercises (2:40)

In Private-Radar, it is possible to edit the Standard Grade of each exercise of a CBTA course, as well the applicable competencies and phases.

1. First go to the Courses Module and choose the course you wish to edit.

2. Select the Flights tab, where you can view all the flight lessons of this course.

3. Click on the three dots on the right hand side of the lesson to open the ‘Edit Flight Lesson’ window,

4. The Exercises part shows all the exercises of this lesson. To configure them, click on the three dots to the right hand side of the exercise, and select Edit,

5. In the “Exercise” window you can configure the Standard Grade, and the applicable Competencies and Phases. Simply select or deselect as required.

Private-Radar allows for the standard grade of an exercise to evolve throughout a Course. For example, it could start as a 2 in the first lesson and progress to a 5 for the last lessons.

Evaluating a CBTA flight (3:41)

1. Go to the Flights Module.

2. Select the flight you want to evaluate. You can either click on the “Edit Flight” button, and go to the Lessons tab, or click on the “Evaluate flight” button which will lead you directly to the flight evaluation.

3. Select the lesson of the selected student. The course must be a CBTA.

4. In the flight evaluation window, you will see that the Standard Grade (3) is automatically selected for each exercise in the lesson. Clicking anything other than the Standard Grade will open the full list of competencies and behavioral indicators assigned to that exercise. Here you can select the individual behavioral indicators where the student is above/below the standard grade.

5. Make sure you evaluate all items and then save.

How to view Student Progress (4:31)

Private-Radar allows you to easily see the strengths and weaknesses of a student in a CBTA course on a spider graph.

1. First go to the Users Module and select a student.

2. Open the Courses tab.

3. Click on the title of the Course that you wish to view.

4. Here, you will see the Competencies Spider Graph.

5. The black line on the graph represents the standard grade. If the student’s score is above the black line, it indicates the student is performing better than the standard. If it’s below, it shows the student is underperforming.

How the CBTA Grade is Calculated (5:08)

In Private-Radar, the CBTA grade is calculated as an average for each competency, which is then automatically displayed in the Spider Graph.

For each competency in every exercise, Private-Radar calculates an average grade.

During the evaluation, behavioral indicators are marked, as above or below the standard grade for each competency.

These marks are then counted and this number is then divided by the total number of behavioral indicators, available for that competency, in the exercise.

For example: the standard of an exercise is 3. The instructor marked it as a 2. They selected 3 indicators out of 6 for the competency “Communication”. This will count as a -1 multiplied by 3 and divided by 6, so -0.5 for this exercise. All the grades for the lesson will be averaged to get the final grade for the Communication competency.

This process is repeated for all competencies, across all exercises in the lesson. The final competency score is the average of all these individual calculations.