Beyond the transfer gap: an ecological dynamics framework for police training design

Police training produces a well-documented transfer gap: officers perform well in training but significantly worse under operational conditions. This paper argues that the gap is not adequately explained by insufficient resources or hours. A major contributor is the set of assumptions about learning embedded in training design: that skill is a stored program to be retrieved and executed, that complex skills are assembled from simple parts, and that perception and action are sequential. Inherited from information-processing traditions, these assumptions produce training environments systematically misaligned with operational demands. Ecological dynamics, grounded in Gibson’s ecological psychology and developed for skill acquisition by Davids and colleagues, offers an alternative: skill as the ability to establish functional relationships between performer and environment under varying conditions. The constraints-led approach translates this into design through four principles – intention, constrain to afford, representative design, and repetition without repetition. Vervaeke’s four kinds of knowing (propositional, procedural, perspectival, participatory) extend the framework beyond perceptual-motor skill. Firearms training is the illustrative case, but the framework applies across police skills, including de-escalation, crisis communication, and decision-making. Evidence draws on U.S. U.K., German, and Australian research; the principles are not jurisdiction-specific.